Congrats to Nick from the UK who won the Episode 666 "back-masking" easter egg challenge.
He was the first person to decipher the hidden message at the beginning of that episode.
He got a $20 1Password gift card.
Surprisingly only three people reversed the audio to figure out the Easter Egg.
News
About those low Mac numbers
The Mac was the big disappointment of last weeks quarterly results call and now the community is trying to answer two questions.
Why and what does it mean?
Most point to the lack of new Mac models as the why, but even that may not be so simple
Another possible contributing factor would be folks supplementing their computing needs with iPhones and iPads
Apple sold just 3.72 Macs in the quarter. Apple has not sold fewer then 4 million Macs in a quarter since 2013 and it was the lowest number since the 3rd quarter of 2010
It was a 13 percent year over year drop, so how bad is it?
The machines Apple did update have a much higher selling price, so fewer Macs sold, but at might higher profit means revenue was only down 5 percent (and remember no real new machines)
Apple is also expected to update the bulk of it's Mac line-up in the fall so those numbers should turn around.
Apple Pay smells success
Apple Pay transactions have tripled since March of 2017. Tim Cook noted on the Q3 call they processed 1 Billion transactions in the quarter.
Jupiter research predicts Apple Pay will account for 1 in 2 mobile device payments by 2020
Chase just rolled out Apple Pay to 16,000 ATMs in the US following Wells Fargo and BofA
Consumer Reports did it's first head-to-head testing of Peer-to-peer mobile payment services and declared Apple Pay the best of the bunch
The report tested Venmo, Square Cash, Facebook Messenger, and Apple Pay
They noted all the platforms were "good enough" to use, but Apple Pay Cash had the edge in privacy and security.
Specifically Apple Pay was the only one to limit what customer information was gather or shared with wither payments.
It didn't store credit card number and promised not to sell data.
It lost points because it only works on Apple's platform and only with recent devices.
Apple ends affiliate program for Apps
Apple email publisher to let them know it's winding down it's affiliate program for Mac and iOS Apps and in-app-purchases.
They will still have a program for music, movies, books, and TV shows.
The Apps will be phased out of the program starting October first.
The news cause a small outcry from some publishers who rely on App Affiliate links for a significant part of their revenue stream.
Apple's program was quite nice.
Affiliate payout came out of Apple's 30 percent revenue cut and Apple offer 7 percent back the affiliates on App purchases and 2.5 percent of in-app purchases. The IAP rate was also 7 percent, but Apple dropped it last year.
They also had wanted to drop the purchased App rate to 2.5 percent, but backtracked after getting outrage from publishers.
Does make you wonder if they had not made a beef about the lower rate if Apple wouldn't be discontinuing the program now?
Apple says the program just isn't as necessary anymore for driving sales since the newly redesigned App Stores have increased methods of app discovery.
The editorial nature of the "Today" section do seem to replace some of the blogs and publications content for me.
Still not great news for publication that used this program to supplement already dwindling ad revenues.
TouchArcade has been one of the most vocal about the potential impact of the decision on their publication.
It's be a shame if they went away because of this. They do a great job reviewing mobile games over there.
iOS 12s "leaky" icons
An icon in the iOS 12 betas shows small bezels, rounded corners, and no button
The icon was found in the battery usage UI
No "notch" though. Looks like the TrueDepth camera located in the top bezel.
Further digging by Guilherme Rambo uncovered some image assets that suggest rounded corners in the design like the iPhone X
Guilherme also found some icons for the iPhone in the iOS PassKitUIFoundation.
The iCon seems to depict the new larger iPhone X Plus, with the notch.
On the iPhone front suggestions from the Economic Daily news that the "Dual-SIM" iPhone will actually be a variant of the 6.1-inch LCD model and it would be exclusive to China.
They also suggest Apple will use iPhone 9 as the name for the 6.1-inch model.
Past rumors suggest the dual-SIM model would be the larger 6.5-inch version of the iPhone X
Report that Apple will not include the 3.5mm to Lightning headphone adapter with this years iPhones
TSMC, Apple's manufacturer of some of the A-series processors, was hit by a "debilitating" computer virus
They said the extent of the infiltration varied on a factory by factory basis.
It caused them to temporarily shut down many of their factories.
At first they didn't say what the attack was, but did state it was NOT the work of a network intrusion. Later in a statement they confirmed it was a variant of the 2017 WannaCry ransomware and that an "unidentified vendor" provided the company with the infected tool.
By Monday they were back up to 80 percent capacity
The supplier had begun commercial production of chips for Apple being manufactured using its advanced 7-nanometer process
Reuters reports analysts suggesting that the impact on A-series chip production will be ‘limited.’
The supply chain is usually prepared for "incidents" to occur and manufactures a surplus to account for it,
HomePod gets it's "smart speaker' share
Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) says in a new report that Apple's HomePod has a ‘small but meaningful’ market share of the US smart speaker market.
They estimate Apple has sold about 3 million HomePods
HomePod has increased its market share to six percent as of the second quarter of 2018, ending June 30
Amazon has 70 percent of the market and Google Home 24 percent
The report notes that Apple's is grabbing some that marketshare from their competitors, but that the HomePods price limits it's ability to compete in the space.
There are rumors Apple is considering a lower-cost version of the HomePod somewhere between $150 and $200 USD
Apple is first "trillion dollar" company
Apple's stock price closed high enough last week to earn it the honor of being the first company to have a Market Cap over a trillion dollars
The number is calculated by the share price vs the total number of shares in the market.
$207.05 is the magic number and it can go above or below that, so there's no guarantee they'll stay there.
It's also debatable wether the number really means much beyond just being a milestone.
It is cool considering the MANY predictions in the mid-90s that Apple would not survive at all as a company.
A leaked memo from Tim Cook seemed to put things in the right perspective
He too called it a "significant milestone"
He also said the achievement is a result of Apple's focus innovation, putting their products and customers first, and always staying true to their values.
The work drives the profits and success, not the other way around.
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Feedback, commentary, opinions
Reverse audio in GarageBand
Open GarageBand and create a new project.
Import the audio file by dragging it into your timeline
Select the region by clicking on it
If you want to select a small region you need to split it
place the playhead at the start of the region you want to clip and choose 'Edit' > 'Split Regions at Playhead' (Command+T)
place the playhead at the end of the region you want to clip and choose 'Edit' > 'Split Regions at Playhead' (Command+T)
Select this new region
With the region selected, in the 'Editor' at the bottom left of the window click on the 'Region' tab
Check the "Reverse Playback" option.
A call from the top
Play audio interview with Tanner
This is one of the first cases I've heard personally of someone being called by Tim Cook, but over the years we've heard rumors of him calling customers who had the Apple Watch save their life
Still this is different. I did ask around and someone else I know said he's been told by Genius bar employees that customers have claimed to get calls on occasion from Tim.
This is all hearsay, but it is fun to think that you could email Tim and maybe get a few precious moments of his time.
Even if it doesn't really happen the myth is fun to imagine.
What Siri needs to "work on"
Siri can take a lot of flack, but recently things seem to be getting better.
I mentioned recently the shoot out AIs and Siri held her own against the likes of Alexa and Google Assistant
Steve shared some of his experiences and thoughts as well.
About a year ago he contacted me to express his frustrations with Siri and CarPlay
This time he says he was showing off the system to a "technophobic friend" and was happy to report, " it has improved in orders of magnitude over that time".
Answering a series of navigational, information, and command instructions almost perfectly.
I had a chance to use CarPlay for the first time at Macstock, I loved it.
He had an interesting thought on breaking down Siri and the areas of how it functions and where to improve things into three "levels"
Level 1: Understanding what was said (accurately parsing the text)
Level 2: Interpreting what was intended and giving the appropriate response
Level 3: Responding with the appropriate detail and information (data and search)
At level one, parsing text I agree with many of the points Steve makes
Siri needs to do a better job at parsing accents and working in areas outside of the US.
This is related, in my opinion, to Level 2 in a great many ways (more in a minute)
He points out that Siri is "microphone quality dependent"
At level two Siri tends to excel at not always forcing you to use specific phrasing and offers many was to ask various requests (for the most part)
Steve also mentioned not handling "follow-on" questions that well, "Who was the first US president", followed by "and when did he die". (This actually worked for me, but the point is taken).
Where I feel there is a failure at this level is in the AI using other contextual factors to determine the intent of the request and factor that into how Siri decides to handle the request
"Play Inspired by the Cars", an Apple Music Playlist. "I'm sorry I can't find the song. "Inspired".
There should be a hierarchy. Looks for a song by that artists, an album (none found with accuracy), maybe there's a playlist.
Instead you're forced to make the request more specific, Play "playlist Inspired by the Cars" works.
Other small things, if a request seems movie related and I'm near a theater it's possible I'm more likely wanting movie times, a long way away from a theater, probably want more general movie information.
Not absolute, so why not be more conversational and ask for clarity (which she sometimes does)
Then there's level three, data and searching
This is likely the biggest challenge beacuse it requires accessing or licensing the info
Steve mentions being surprised that Siri lacks Formula One racing results and "fixtures', but that is data they need to license from someone. Yes it could possibly be searched and "scraped" from the Internet, but there are legal issues for a company like Apple and parsing scraped data is tricky.
F1 data is coming in iOS 12
Opening the platform, as Steve points out, to third party apps and their data sources could help, but there is quality control and data privacy issues at play.
Luckily with Siri Shortcuts some of this will be opened up a little, especially at the command level.
