Month: April 2017

Google’s Search Quality Crisis ⇥ searchengineland.com

Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land put together a lengthy explanation of how Google has been dropping the ball in search recently, and what they can do about it. It’s a good overview, and his conclusion is particularly interesting to me:

We should continue to hold Google and search engines to a high standard and highlight where things clearly go wrong. But we should also understand that perfection isn’t going to be possible. That with imperfect search engines, we need to employ more human critical thinking skills alongside the searches we do — and that we teach those to generations to come.

Life itself rarely has “one true answer” to anything. Expecting Google or any search engine to give them is a mistake.

I agree; I think users should have always been viewing search results with much more scrutiny than they do. But many people are lulled into believing that Google’s representation of the truth is the correct one. Their rich snippet answer box made this already-pervasive belief far worse by highlighting a single piece of a webpage as, seemingly, The Answer, even for questions where The Answer doesn’t exist. That’s a deliberate design decision on Google’s part, and one that should be reversed.

Jay Z Has Removed His Records From Spotify, Apple Music ⇥ macrumors.com

Unlike many artists, Jay Z is fortunate enough to be able to make the choice to only distribute his music for streaming through Tidal. It’s his right and responsibility, as an artist, to set the conditions for how his music will be distributed.

But as a businessperson, he must know that this won’t dramatically improve Tidal’s market share. Very few people will pay ten dollars every month just to have on-demand streaming access to Jay Z’s back catalogue, especially since he hasn’t released a new record in nearly four years. Perhaps he’s working on one and it will be a Tidal exclusive; Kanye West’s “The Life of Pablo” seemed to breathe some life into Tidal last year, albeit helped by those acquiring the album through other means.

Update: As of April 10, the ruler’s back. Maybe he just wanted to take the weekend off.

The 2016 Panic Report ⇥ panic.com

It’s been an awesome year for Panic — now in their twentieth of business. But there’s a bee in their bonnet, as Cabel Sasser explains:

iOS continues to haunt us. If you remember, 2016 was the year we killed Status Board, our very nice data visualization app. Now, a lot of it was our fault. But it was another blow to our heavy investment in pro-level iOS apps a couple years ago, a decision we’re still feeling the ramifications of today as we revert back to a deep focus on macOS. Trying to do macOS quality work on iOS cost us a lot of time for sadly not much payoff. We love iOS, we love our iPhones, and we love our iPads. But we remain convinced that it’s not — yet? — possible to make a living selling pro software on those platforms. Which is a real bummer!

This is a hard problem, particularly on the iPad. The Pro model is an ideal canvas for highly sophisticated apps that enable the kind of work more typically completed on laptops, but the financial model of the App Store hasn’t been conducive to that.

The solutions available to independent developers, like Panic, seem rather limited. They could make the app available on a subscription basis, or tie the iOS app to an active desktop app license; but, these pricing models have flaws of their own.

The software-as-a-service model doesn’t work for every kind of app, and it really adds up as more apps use it as a pricing model. It’s especially hard to justify for an app you don’t frequently use.

Treating the iOS version of an app as a companion to the desktop version could allow for an easier-to-swallow price hike when buying the Mac version, but it would run afoul of rule 3.1.4 in the App Store Guidelines.1 I’m also skeptical of how much the desktop app’s price could be increased to sufficiently offset the development cost of the iOS app.

There are probably plenty more pricing models than what I’ve written here, but none I’ve seen yet seem capable of addressing the financial viability of this specific software niche. It’s a tricky problem. Without a solution, though, I question the long-term viability of independently-made professional-grade software on iOS.

  1. “Apps may not use their own mechanisms to unlock content or functionality, such as license keys, augmented reality markers, QR codes, etc.” ↥︎

Why Pro Matters ⇥ medium.com

A fantastic piece by Sebastiaan de With:

Before this week’s announcement, it was looking like the future would simply pass Apple by.

And I was convinced — me, an ex-Apple designer with the greatest passion for Macs — that I had bought my last Mac, and would finally be forced to switch back to PCs.

I’m incredibly relieved I won’t be.

There’s a remarkable ripple effect created by the relatively tiny “pro” Macintosh market. It would be understandable, on the surface, for Apple to discontinue the Mac Pro entirely, but that would require them to cede an influential niche user base. I’m encouraged that they see the value in maintaining — and, maybe, even increasing — their commitment to pro users.

Apple Releases Clips App ⇥ mashable.com

If you were looking forward to Apple’s new Clips app, you’ll be delighted to hear that it’s now available.

Lance Ulanoff of Mashable really likes it:

But apps like Instagram and Snapchat have their limits, especially when it comes to permanence. Even the most beautiful snap will be gone in a day.

Tools, like Apple’s iMovie (the free version that runs on iOS) that offer richer tools and more permeance are inscrutable and lack the sense of fun promised by Instagram and Facebook Stories. Whatever you create might look good but will lack that sense of fun and shareability.

Apple’s new video-creation and sharing platform, Clips, is the near-perfect middle ground.

It’s not a social platform or a full-scale video editing platform, though it shares some of the best attributes of both.

I’ve been playing with it for a few hours now, and I think my initial impressions of the app — before I used it — are largely correct. The titling feature is clever and there are some decent filters, but I don’t find it very compelling yet.

It’s not that the app isn’t good at making short, fun videos; in fact, it’s great at doing that. But it seems like it’s trying to shoehorn an Instagram or Snapchat style of app into Apple’s typical UI conventions. As Ulanoff says, it seems less like a competitor to those apps than it does a trimmed-down version of iMovie. Maybe the market for something like that is large, but I’m not sold on it yet.

There are some silly limitations and quirks within the app, too. You can add emoji over a clip, but it seems to only show the “frequently used” set. Live Titles is a really clever idea, but it’s less accurate than dictation or Siri.

It’s a small thing, but the icon is also disappointing. It’s supposed to be a fun, creative, silly app, so why does the icon make it look like it will be for corporate videoconferencing?

I think this is an app worth experimenting with and I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets a handful dedicated users. But I’m skeptical of its chances of long-term success against established social apps. After all, if it’s permanence you’re worried about, you can always save your Instagram and Snapchat posts. I’d be more concerned with how likely it is that Apple remains committed to delivering updates — other experimental apps they’ve shipped, like Music Memos and Cards, quickly became neglected after launch. Apps like these are hard to get right, and I don’t think Clips is a hit yet. One day, I think it could be really great, but only if Apple sees it as a long-term commitment.

Update: Though there’s no social network component internal to Clips, the standard Sharing sheet has been enhanced with a row of recent Messages contacts across the top. I’d love to see that in every Sharing sheet.

Update: I’m not trying to be a pessimistic jerk about Clips. I’m just questioning the wisdom of creating a side project app that’s a late adopter of current trends in video, especially considering iMovie hasn’t been updated since July.

Google Commissions Teen Study That Says Google Is Cool ⇥ qz.com

Corinne Purtill, Quartz:

Hey! Psst? Wanna know what the cool teens are thinking these days? What hip slang they use? What multinational brands they enjoy? Then check out “It’s Lit: A guide to what teens think is cool,” a research publication by the people you think of when you think of cool: the Brand Team for Consumer Apps at Google!

[…]

Teens’ absolute favorite brand — and this is a total coincidence that BTFCAAG has no choice but to pass along — is YouTube, a Google property. The third coolest is Google. The 10th coolest is Chrome, Google’s web browser. Google is the coolest multinational conglomerate subsidiary there is! You don’t even have to take Google’s word for it. They also have quotes from Real Teens. Like ‘Female, 17, from suburban Florida,’ who says: ‘Google is not only a powerful search engine, but great at everything it does, from email to documents.’ Way to stick it to the man, Gen Z!

No, really, do check this thing out (PDF). It’s an amazingly inept piece of PR bullshit. Want confirmation that it’s really, really bullshit? Here’s something I cribbed from page five of their report:

Teens are obsessed with shoes. Within the clothes/fashion/ beauty category almost 30% of the responses of what is cool were ‘shoes.’ To Gen Z, the top 3 coolest shoe brands are Jordan, Converse, and Vans.

Anybody who knows anything about sneakers will be aware that 2016 was the year of Adidas. For the first time in over a decade, a non-Nike brand topped NPD Group’s best-selling chart thanks to the Adidas Superstar. Meanwhile, the various Ultraboost, NMD, and Yeezy models Adidas released in 2016 were easily the hottest sneakers of the year.

Meanwhile, Google’s Brand Team allegedly found that Sunglass Hut is cooler among teens than Vice, and that the Doritos brand is slightly cooler than Amazon, but way cooler than Spotify.

Failures at Uber, Yahoo, and Twitter Are Not PR Problems ⇥ recode.net

A day of rather critical articles — sorry about that, by the way — continues with an excellent piece from Kara Swisher at Recode:

“It’s a PR problem, with the media piling on,” said this person. “And PR can fix it. Let Uber be Uber”

Let’s not let it, shall we?

It’s moments like these that I am not entirely sure I live in a real adult place called Silicon Valley anymore. Instead, when I hear such elaborate justifications, it feels like it is increasingly becoming an environment that abrogates responsibility for actual actions that have actual consequences.

For the egregious ethical and business issues reported at Uber and Yahoo, respectively, PR is nothing more than giving a paint job to a busted-up Ford Pinto.

FCC, FTC Bosses Pen Misleading Washington Post Editorial ⇥ techdirt.com

Karl Bode of Techdirt tears apart this entirely dishonest editorial jointly written by FCC chair Ajit Pai and FTC chair Maureen Ohlhausen:

Of course, there’s something else the pair intentionally and comically avoid talking about in their treatise. And that’s the fact that to gut FCC authority over broadband and shovel it back to an already-overburdened FTC, regulators need to roll back the Title II reclassification of ISPs as common carriers — and by proxy the nation’s net neutrality rules. Pai and Ohlhausen don’t even utter the phrase “net neutrality” in their missive, knowing all-too-well that they’d be laughed out of town if they didn’t try to hide their real objective under a parade of half-truths and prattle.

But make no mistake, this pretense that we need to shift broadband regulatory oversight back to the FTC because it provides a more “consistent regulatory environment” is a transparently self-serving, telecom industry-concocted canard — and the opening salvo in what will be the death of net neutrality protections if we don’t start paying closer attention.

The way Pai and Ohlhausen frame their editorial is that, by classifying ISPs as common carriers, the big bad Obama administration necessarily moved privacy protections from the FTC to the FCC, and somehow reduced those privacy restrictions in the process. That’s not true, as Bode explains, but their framing implies that privacy should be handled by the FTC alone and, to do that, ISPs should not be classified as common carriers.

Of course, ISPs aren’t just providing internet access any more — they own the media pipeline. Reducing regulatory oversight — particularly by rescinding their common carrier status — will only make this problem worse.

Oath, the Product of Verizon’s Ownership of Yahoo and AOL, Will Be a Privacy Nightmare ⇥ theverge.com

Nilay Patel and Ben Popper of the Verge:

This is everything Verizon and AOL have been working toward over the past few years. Like every other broadband provider, Verizon wants to extract more revenue from its network by increasingly owning the media that travels over it.

But unlike AT&T (which bought DirecTV and is in the process of buying Time Warner) or Comcast (which bought NBCUniversal and invested in companies like BuzzFeed and our own Vox Media), Verizon’s plan is far more lowbrow: it’s going to churn out as much cheap content as it can from AOL and Yahoo and tell advertisers it can do a better job of delivering eyeballs because it has better ad-tracking capabilities than Google and Facebook.

If you think the legislators who voted in favour of stripping internet privacy protections from the FCC’s duties — or the FCC chairman himself — were unaware of the catastrophe they created, you’re fooling yourself. They knew perfectly well that ISPs are increasingly in charge of the entire process of media creation and delivery, and that ads could be sold on the back of that. All of this should result in a burst of economic activity, right?

I see a flaw in that: we’re becoming numbed by over-exposure to advertising. Maybe paving the road for ISPs to create the most highly-targeted advertising products will create a burst of economic activity, but I bet its effective timeline is limited, and it comes at the cost of selling out Americans’ privacy.

The Web Looks Like Shit ⇥ theoutline.com

I’m not linking to this Outline piece because it’s necessarily new information — though it’s nice to have all of the frustrating pieces of the web in a single tidy article. I’m linking to it because of Hanson O’Haver’s excellent explanation of the cumulative effect of all of this bullshit.

Decreasing ad rates have also put a lot of pressure on websites to devote more screen space to ads, and auto-play videos to increase impressions for video ads. “The very first online ad made a lot of money,” said Ben Williams, head of communications at Adblock Plus, “almost as much as print.” But as early as the mid-’90s advertisers were aware of “banner blindness,” the tendency of internet users to simply not look at the parts of the screen where ads usually are.

[…]

It’s easy to become blind to these problems when you spend all day on the internet. You figure out workarounds, stop looking at large portions of the screen, and install an ad blocker. People who don’t grasp these tricks are dismissed as rubes. Meanwhile, the problems grow more intractable. To borrow a phrase, this situation has become dangerous and unacceptable. We’re 20+ years into the internet era, and instead of becoming simpler and more thoughtful, navigating our digital spaces has turned into an increasingly frustrating exercise. Maybe it’s delusional or naively optimistic to say this, but it feels like there must be a better way.

After being inundated with crappy ads for so long, it’s no wonder many of us are becoming immune to their intended effect, hence the rise of internet chum and sneakier forms of native advertising. There’s no way that these trends will result in a better web or more profitable online publishing; it only makes us more likely to ignore anything that has even the vaguest whiff of advertising about it.

DisplayMate’s Review of the Samsung Galaxy S8’s Display ⇥ displaymate.com

Dr. Raymond Soneira:

The Galaxy S8 is the first in a new generation of OLED Smartphones that have a Full Screen Display design. It is the most innovative and high performance Smartphone display that we have ever lab tested, earning DisplayMate’s highest ever A+ grade.

The display may be just one component in a smartphone, but it’s arguably the one many users will notice most. And virtually every statistic in Soneira’s review backs up his claim that this is the best display that has ever shipped in a smartphone.

However, on colour accuracy:

One very important capability of the Galaxy Smartphones that is often overlooked by many consumers and reviewers, is the set of user selectable Screen Modes that are available under Display Settings, which we cover and measure each one in detail below.

[…]

In order to see the high Color Accuracy, the Display Setting for the Screen Mode needs to match the Color Gamut for the content that is being viewed. All of the reviewers that continue to rant about the poor Color Accuracy of the Galaxy OLED displays have failed to set the proper Screen Mode for their content, which is very accurate as shown in our extensive Lab Measurements and Viewing Tests.

This is preposterous. Colour management is hard — that’s why Craig Hockenberry had to write a book about it. Leaving it up to typical users to recognize when they should enable Adobe RGB instead of sRGB is an idiotic move, and for Soneira to consider this a feature rather than a bug truly shows the contrast between his level of expertise and what users actually want.

One of the four Screen Modes available on the S8 is called Adaptive Display:

The Adaptive Display screen mode provides real-time Adaptive processing that can dynamically adjust images and videos. For some applications it will vary the White Point, Color Gamut, and Color Saturation based on the image content and the color of the surrounding ambient lighting measured by the Ambient Light Sensor (which measures color in addition to brightness).

The other Screen Modes tested by DisplayMate indicated very high colour accuracy, comparable with the displays in the iPhones 6 (but not the 7). Adaptive Display mode, on the other hand, was extremely inaccurate in DisplayMate’s testing because of its egregiously over-saturated colours.

Emphasis mine:

Select the Adaptive Display screen mode using Display Settings – it is the factory default screen mode for the Galaxy S8.

Samsung created a display that can very accurately display the P3 wide colour gamut, yet they chose to set the default to the least-accurate colour profile. Most users won’t change this, just as most people don’t change their wildly over-saturated default TV setting.

I have no doubt that the display component in the Samsung Galaxy S8 is one of the best smartphone displays to have ever shipped. But a display cannot really be separated from the smartphone it’s shipped in. If most customers are likely going to keep its default colour gamut setting, can it really be called the “most innovative and high performance smartphone display”, or receive DisplayMate’s highest-ever grade with honesty? Even if the display can be considered separate of the product, does it really matter that it’s so advanced if few people will ever get to see its true colours?

The Great Laptop Stagnation ⇥ 500ish.com

MG Siegler offered his thoughts yesterday on his 2016 MacBook Pro:

The issue, as I see it, is the same reason why I thought the MacBook might be the last laptop I ever buy. We’re simply at the end of laptop innovation.

Believe me, I know this is a very dangerous thing to say in any field of technology. I run the risk of Phil Schiller getting up on stage and doing a “can’t innovate anymore, my ass” while unveiling a new, sleek device.

But I just don’t see it. The way forward is the iPad (and tablets in general) eating the laptop. This is still blasphemy to some folks, which is funny. This will happen eventually. Everything dies.

It’s kind of curious to juxtapose that comment with a stat revealed by Apple during their Mac Pro roundtable. Matthew Panzarino of TechCrunch:

Apple now ships computers at a ratio of 80 percent notebooks to 20 percent desktop computers, a stat they haven’t updated the public on in some time.

So, of the approximately 34 million Macs Apple has sold over the past eight reported quarters — earnings for Q2 2017 haven’t been released yet — approximately 27 million of them are laptops, give or take. For comparison, over just the three most recently-reported quarters — Q3 2016 through Q1 2017 — Apple sold approximately 32 million iPads.

I don’t see any grand pronouncements that can be made from these figures and perceptions. Just something to consider.

Woman Who Drinks Six Cups of Coffee Per Day Trying to Cut Down on Blue Light at Bedtime ⇥ theonion.com

I’ve been trying Night Shift on-and-off on my Mac for the past few months and I’m struggling to see the appeal. There was one evening where my eyes were truly strained and I needed to complete some stuff on my computer, so I switched it on. After adjusting to the yellowing, I’m still not sure whether the hue shift or lowered brightness was more effective at minimizing my eye strain.

I’ve noticed no difference in my sleeping habits after evenings where I’ve used Night Shift.

I drink two cups of coffee per day.

Apple Is Working on a New Mac Pro, iMac, and External Display ⇥ techcrunch.com

Matthew Panzarino, TechCrunch:

Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller is talking to a small group of reporters in a white stucco building near its headquarters in Cupertino. The purpose of the discussion, while somewhat unclear initially, reveals itself a few minutes in.

The news, if you want it straight: Apple is acknowledging that the Mac Pro they introduced in 2013 has run aground on the cleverness of its own design, and they’re re-thinking the entire machine. In addition, they’ll be releasing a new external display — something it had previously opted out of.

But none of that is coming this year. Today, we’ll see a performance bump on the old design of Mac Pro, which will remain on sale for now. And later this year we’ll see improved iMacs that Apple feels will appeal to a segment of Pro users as well.

John Gruber also attended this briefing, and wrote a little about the obvious irregularity of Apple spilling their own product plans:

I think it was simply untenable for Apple to continue to remain silent on the Mac Pro front. No matter how disappointing you consider today’s speed bump updates to the lineup, they’re certainly better than no updates at all. But there was no way Apple could release today’s speed bumps without acknowledging that in and of themselves, these updates do not suggest that Apple is committed to the Mac Pro. In fact, if they had released these speed bumps without any comment about the future of the Mac Pro, people would have reasonably concluded that Apple had lost its goddamned mind.

Ina Fried of Axios was also there:

The company has no plans for touchscreen Macs, or for machines powered solely by the kind of ARM processors used in the iPhone and iPad. However, executives left open the possibility ARM chips could play a broader role as companion processors, something that showed up first with the T1 processor that powers the Touch Bar in the new MacBook Pro.

This is not necessarily what Apple’s pro customers wanted to hear today, but it is what they — we — needed to hear: an acknowledgement that such a tiny fraction of Apple’s sales are important to the company, and that they’re working on something that will address that. I, of course, have many questions that cannot be answered yet, and I’m okay with that. But on the timing of Apple’s realization that the architecture of the current Mac Pro isn’t capable of keeping up with upgrades, Panzarino quotes these responses:

“I wish I could give you the kind of answer you want with that, which is, ‘oh, there was a day and a meeting and we all got together and said X,’” says Schiller, “but it rarely works that way.”

“We all went on our own emotional journeys, I’d say,” laughs Federighi. “There were periods of denial and acceptance. We all went on that arc.”

I’m not surprised that it has taken this long to even get a whiff of an updated Mac Pro to suit the needs of all of their customers. But why would the development of an all-new Mac Pro preclude them from doing today’s spec bump update a year or two ago? I think that users’ concerns would have been assuaged by even slightly more regular updates.

But here we are, at long last: within sight of a new iMac, and with the knowledge that pro customers are not forgotten. This briefing does a lot, I think, to restore trust in the Mac leg of Apple’s ecosystem stool.

The news of a new display is some pretty fantastic icing on the cake, as far as I’m concerned. I expected that Apple had left the display business behind; their partnership with LG seemed to confirm that.1 After the fiasco with the 5K displays, I couldn’t be happier to read that external displays are still in Apple’s plans.

So: a new Mac Pro, a new display, and an updated iMac. The latter will be out this year, while the other products won’t be — Apple provided no guidance on when to expect them. That might not be stellar news, but it’s open and communicative, and that’s what a lot of us want to hear: an assurance that the Mac is still integral to Apple’s strategy, and that higher-end desktop customers are still important to them.

Update: One thing I didn’t see mentioned, unsurprisingly, is a commitment to regular Mac Pro updates. By the vague descriptions of the machine communicated to this roundtable of journalists, it should allow more frequent updates, but whenever this thing is introduced, I would love to hear and see a commitment to that.

A Mac is like a box of packaged tea: its expiration date might be far into the future on any shelf, but you wouldn’t buy it if you thought it had been made three years ago and was left to sit around.

  1. Over the past several years, I kept hearing hints about a brand new display being developed inside Apple. But, after the LG 5K display was announced as something of a partnership, I assumed that whatever was being developed had either always been destined for the LG display, or assisted LG after Apple had a change of heart. ↥︎

iPad Sales by Screen Size ⇥ aboveavalon.com

Interesting perspective from Neil Cybart:

iPad sales have faced one major headwind in recent years. This item explains a significant portion of the sales decline. It’s not inferior software, weak storytelling, or even a longer upgrade cycle. Instead, the iPad’s problem has been the iPad mini.

People aren’t buying as many iPad mini devices these days. Excluding 7.9-inch iPad mini sales from overall iPad sales results in a completely different sales picture. As seen in Exhibit 3, iPad mini unit sales have declined 70% after peaking in 4Q13 and 1Q14. The product’s value proposition has been permanently reduced due to larger iPhones. Apple has clearly experienced Peak iPad Mini. It’s not that the iPad mini form factor is going away, but rather that it will play a smaller role going forward.

As Apple doesn’t break down iPad sales by model, Cybart is using data from Fiksu, a mobile advertising company. Their accuracy appears decent — their iOS version tracking stats show 80% of devices using iOS 10 and 15% using iOS 9 in the week of February 20; Apple’s own stats show 79% on iOS 10 and 16% on iOS 9.

Fiksu’s numbers show iPad sales that are still weaker than they were, say, four or five years ago, but without the massive apparent downfall with iPad Mini sales factored in. A fun — albeit pointless — thought experiment is to consider what iPad sales might have been like had the iPad Mini not been introduced.

I still think a big leap in software is necessary for the iPad line, but a reduced focus on the iPad Mini — and its limited display area — could yield far greater improvements for the bigger models.

See Also: Jean-Louis Gassée’s piece on what he sees as a turning point for the iPad, especially with the launch of the new low-cost and lower-specced 9.7-inch model.

Update: Michael Tsai:

…I think more than linear improvements would be needed for the iPad to become what Tim Cook thinks of it as.

Chris Adamson:

So where is the software of consequence for iPad? And who, given App Store economic realities, can afford to write it?

I’d like Apple to aim for a higher watermark, but I’ll settle for incremental changes — provided that software comes to the iPad that makes it feel like it’s of a professional calibre. I don’t know which happens first, though: does the App Store need to change in some way, or does a piece of “pro” software need to launch first to really give the iPad a kick up the ass?

Notes on the Touch Bar ⇥ randsinrepose.com

Michael Lopp does not like his MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar:

In week #3 of actively using the 15” MacBook Pro, I am delighted by its build quality. I love its weight. Last night, I found myself admiring the machining of the aluminum notch that allows me to open the computer. I type deftly on this hardware.

I am also equally deft at randomly muting my music, unintentionally changing my brightness or volume level, and jarringly engaging Siri.

It is maddening. And it’s not improving.

This is a well-written exploration into the very different compromises required to use the Touch Bar compared to a row of function keys. On the plus side, the functions available in that top row are now flexible and can reflect the needs of the currently-foregrounded app; on the flip side, replacing physical buttons with a barely-delineated touch-sensitive strip makes it extremely difficult to make any Touch Bar-centric adjustments by touch alone.

Marco Arment became so frustrated with his Touch Bar-equipped 15-inch MacBook Pro that he replaced it with the 13-inch model that retains the row of physical function keys. The 13-inch “MacBook Escape” has a lot of drawbacks compared to its Touch Bar siblings — two fewer Thunderbolt ports, slower memory, a slower processor, somewhat slower WiFi, and no Touch ID — so that’s a powerful statement about how much the Touch Bar is impeding his typical usage.

With that in mind, Steve Troughton-Smith is running a Twitter poll on how many like the Touch Bar, and how many do not. With 966 votes in, the split was 51/49 in favour of the Touch Bar. The poll is now at around 1,800 votes, and I look forward to seeing the results. It’s going to be very, very close — confusing for a feature pitched as “something much more versatile and capable”.

Update: Troughton-Smith’s poll has ended after nearly 3,000 votes at the same 51/49 split in favour of the Touch Bar’s usability.

New Apple Watch Ad: ‘Live Bright’ ⇥ youtube.com

I’ve found Apple’s advertising over the past year, especially, to be a bit of a mixed bag. It has felt messy and, frankly, a little bit bland.

This, though, is terrific. Between the near-silhouetted figures and the bright colours, it’s reminiscent of the classic iPod ads. And it features an edited version of Beyoncé’s “Freedom”, so it’s fantastic in every way.