shownotes_20181218

Opening
  Opening Music
    Music is Say Anything by Manda and the Marbles
News
  Qualcomm get China iPhone ban.
    Qualcomm has been in a long running patent dispute with Apple concerning iPhones and multiple Qualcomm software patents.
      They seem to be multi-touch related patents
      "enable consumers to adjust and reformat the size and appearance of photographs and to manage applications using a touch screen when viewing, navigating, and dismissing applications on their phones."
    On November 30th a Chinese court ruled in favor of Qualcomm and ordered a nationwide ban on iPhone sales of several older models.
      Actually ALL older models including the iPhone 8 and iPhone X
      Qualcomm was pushing hard to get the ban extended to the iPhone XS and XR models.
    Apple appealed the ruling and at first said the ban wasn't in effect yet and only applied to older versions of iOS and not iOS 12
      A Qualcomm spokesperson said if Apple ignored the ban they would ask the Chinese government to "force" Apple to comply.
      Which they did, but Apple says all phones shipping have iOS 12 which they believe is not subject to the ban.
      iPhones assembled by Foxconn and Wistron are in infringement of Qualcomm patents … but Pegatron-produced iPhones are not, so Apple my move more production to Pegatron.
        Pegatron has a patent licensing agreement in place with Qualcomm that covers the two patents at the center of the ban
    Apple pushed out a software update iOS 12.1.2 that Apple says removes any infringing software in iOS 12 in China.
      Regardless of the update Qualcomm still maintains Apple is violating the court's ruling by continuing to sell the iPhones without explicit permission to do so.
      iOS 12.1.2 also offered some eSIM fixes.
    The battle between the two companies is legendary at this point Apple has told it's suppliers to withhold royalty payments to Qualcomm while the lawsuits are pending, about $7 billion dollars worth. Qualcomm is pissed to say the least.
    Last year Qualcomm sought a US import ban on iPhone's that was shot down by a US trade judge
      While he did find the iPhone's "infringing" on one patent he ruled that “public interest factors” weigh against the import ban request
      Now the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) is reviewing that judgement and could reverse the decision.
      One factor is "how long it would take Apple to design around a ban or if it already has."
      They will make their ruling on February 19th.
    With this and the looming import taxes Apple is getting beat up in China
      Bloomberg reported that Apple could handle a 10% tax, but if it went as high as 25% they would look for manufacturing options outside China
      That doesn't immediately mean the US. Apple has manufacturing in India, Brazil, and Taiwan among other places.
      It also doesn't rule out the US in the future.
    Apple is also facing pressure from Egypt to end "unfair restrictions on local distributors"
      iPhone prices are already high, but in Egypt prices are 50% more than in other Middle East countries
        An iPhone XS 512GB is almost $2,000US in Egypt vs. about $1,300 in the UAE
      The Egyptian Competition Authority gave Apple two months to end exclusive distribution agreements and allow local retailers to buy from local distributors, something Apple prevents them from doing now.
    With all this Qualcomm business we've also had rumors of Apple looking to possibly design their own cellular modems
      Reports of Apple planning a new San Diego office (by 2023) and poaching Qualcomm engineers
      Could take three years for Apple to develop their own modem chips
    Apple announced a new 133-acre campus in North Austin with a $1B investment
      It will be used for engineering, R&D, operating, finance, sales and customer support.
      At first the new Austin campus will have 5,000 employees, but will grow to 15,000 over time
      It will run on 100 percent renewable energy and have 50 acres of preserved open space.
      Other expanded workforces in Seattle, San Diego, and Culver City by 2019 with over 1,000 employees each
      Will expand their presence in Pittsburgh, New York, Portland Oregon, and Colorado.
      Apple plans to invest $10 billion in US data centers over the next five years with a new site in Waukee and expansions at current data centers in North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada.
      In 2018 Apple added 6,000 jobs to its American workforce and now employs 90,000 people in all 50 states. The hope is to add another 20,000 new US jobs by 2023
  Apple suppliers report strong revenue
    Coming from a Bloomberg report
    Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, both posted a 5.6 percent increase in November sales.
    Seems to push against reports of Apple supplier cut backs.
    Still other Apple suppliers like AMS, Japan Display, Lumentum, and others have been issuing warnings about weaker earnings and were slashing revenue forecasts last month.
    TSMC also has the advantage of being able to take on other companies if Apple is pulling back on orders.
    Still Ming-Chi Kuo thinks demand is low and significantly reduced his forecast for iPhone unit shipments in the upcoming quarter
      He claims even sales of older devices are not enough to offset slow iPhone X sand XR sales.
      Citing lower demand for iPhone XR (he sees 5 million fewer units then originally predicted) he's now citing Q1 2019 (January – March) iPhone sales of 38-42 million, down from 50 million
      For 2018 he's predicting total iPhone shipments of 210 million, but just 188 to 194 million for 2019 or an overall 5-10 percent decline
      Because of higher price points he's not expecting the revenue declines to be as significant.
    I fell Apple investors are seriously underestimating Apple's ability to shift revenue and growth into Services ad they transition to the next hardware format.
  Apple continues media content blitz
    Apple has hired another ex-Sony employee, Tamara Hunter, to be their casting director for Apple Worldwide video.
      She was most recently at Sony, but for 10 years before that at Sarah Finn Co.
      She worked on many of the Marvel cinematic universe films, Deadpool, X-Men: Apocalypse, and Hidden Figures
      She will oversee casting for all films and TV shows at Apple.
    Apple has also made a straight-to-series order for a show based on a 2017 memoir by Amy Silverstein called, "My Glory Was I Had Such Friends"
      The memoir follows a group of women who supported Silverstein as she waited for a second life-saving heart transplant.
      The series will star Jennifer Garner and executive produced by J.J. Abrams and his Bad Robot Productions along with Warner Bros. Television
      Abrams is also producing another series title "Little Voices" for Apple which is said to be a half hour dramedy that is a love letter to "the diverse musicality of New York."
    Apple has also done a deal with DHX Media that will bring all-new "Peanuts" content to Apple's video service
      Peanuts Worldwide will develop and produce the original series, specials, and shorts staring Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Woodstock and all the Peanuts gang.
      One item mentioned in the report from variety is a short featuring astronaut Snoopy that will be themed around STEM education
      There is no mention of Apple getting a license or access to back catalog.
    Apple also reportedly signed “Fast and the Furious” director-producer Justin Lin to an exclusive TV development deal
      The report from Variety doesn't go into an specifics on what Lin or his Perfect Storm Entertainment production company would be producing for Apple.
    Apple's video streaming service is expected to launch in over 100 countries in 2019.
    There are also still rumors Apple plans to relaunch the Texture paid news and magazine subscription service Apple acquired in 2016.
      It would be rolled din under Apple News
      There are still not firm details on the price.
      The service had 200,000 subscribers paying $10/mo.
      There have been reports that publishers are still leery about Apple controlling their content and that they would leave their individual paywalled services for Apple's all you can eat option
      Apple's counter is one word, volume.
      Revenue under Texture was shared by tracking what people were reading.
    Apple adds another social media music failure to it's list.
      remember Ping?
      Now it looks like Apple is sunsetting Apple Music Connect
      They reportedly have removing the ability for artists to post content and previously posted Apple Music Connect content is being removed from the For You section and Artist Pages in Apple Music.
      Previously uploaded content will still be searchable until May 24, 2019
  Apple renewing car efforts?
    Apple has reportedly hired Tesla Senior Designer Andrew Kim and some believe this is a sign Apple could be renewing efforts in it's Project Titan autonomous vehicle project.
    Kim worked on the Roadster 2, the Semi, plus Models S,X,Y, and the Model 3 and was focused on the vehicle interior including the dashboard layouts.
    Over the summer we had reports of Apple stepping up hiring efforts around it's car and autonomous systems project
    It includes many hires of former Tesla talent in all areas of development including Autopilot, quality assurance, powertrain, mechanical design and firmware engineers as well as manufacturing experts
    Apparently the rumor is Apple is placing renewed emphasis on manufacturing processes and equipment.
    So they could be working up vehicle or systems designed that would then be outsourced to manufacturing partners.
    Kim also worked for three years at Microsoft on the HoloLens project, so could also bring his knowledge and experience to Apple's AR/VR efforts
    I still think Apple could put together and amazing vehicle as a service (VaaS) program selling not other the vehicle service, but also entertainment and other services around the car service.
  Apple Pay finally in Germany
    Apple Pay partners in Germany include American Express, Deutsche Bank, Hanseatic Bank, HypoVereinsbank, Edenred, Comdirect, Fidor Bank, and mobile banks and payment services o2, N26, boon, bunq, and VIMpay.
    In 2019 ING, Consorsbank, and Deutsche Kreditbank will also offer Apple Pay in Germany
    The Commonwealth Bank of Australia – or CommBank – also announced that it will finally support Apple Pay
      Apple Pay will launch for its personal customers in January of 2019
    The BBC's Channel 4 on demand service is finally available on the Apple TV, just look for the "All 4" app in the TV App Store.
Sponsor: Atlassian
  Opsgenie
    We all hate it when our favorite website or server goes down. Even for a few minutes.
      I know when something like Netflix, or Amazon, or iCloud goes down it impacts me
    I'm an unhappy customer. But my unhappiness is really nothing to the impact on the business who service is down.
    Luckily for us there are those of you out there who are there to save us from outages, the unsung heroes of Dev and Ops teams.
    And luckily for folks like you there's Opsgenie from Atlassian.
    It's your job to respond quickly to incidents and to do that you need a tool like Opsgenie in your utility belt.
    Opsgenie gives teams the power to respond quickly and efficiently to unplanned issues.

    It helps to notify all the right people through a smart combination of scheduling and
    escalation paths that takes into account things like time zones and holidays.

    allows for deep flexibility in how, when, and where alerts are deployed, supported by
    over 200 integrations like Jira, Amazon Cloudwatch, DataDog, New Relic, and more.

    tracks all activity and provides useful insights to improve future incident responses
    With Opsgenie, your next incident doesn’t stand a chance.
      Visit: [Opsgenie dot com](https://opsgenie.com) to sign up to get a FREE company account and add up to 5 team members.
      Never miss a critical alert again with Opsgenie.
Feedback, commentary, opinions
  Not quite winter
    I mention it being "winter" on the last Maccast and Brad wrote in to remind me that officially winter starts December 21st, we're still a few days away.
    Maybe it was my cold, or just the holiday season and the cooler weather, but it feels like winter for a lot of us. ;)
  US ECG seems to need US Apple ID
    This has been confirmed by a few Maccast Apple Watch owners.
    You need a US based credit card to get a US based Apple ID.
  Hey Alexa, play Apple Music
    If you have Apple Music and an Amazon Echo device you can now marry the two
    To set it up:
      1. Open the Alexa app on your iPhone or iPad
      2. Tap the Settings icon in the top left corner (3 lines)
      3. Tap Settings > Music
      4. Tap Link New Service at the top
      5. Tap Apple Music and log in with your credentials
    To set Apple Music as your default music service
      1. Open the Alexa app on your iPhone or iPad
      2. Tap the Settings icon in the top left corner (3 lines)
      3. Tap Settings > Music
      4. Toward the bottom, tap Choose default music services
      5. You can pick Apple Music for Default music library as well as Default station service (Beats 1?)
  Hidden time tumbler gesture
    Ok, this is one I had never heard of from Bob
    In the Calendar when entering the time of an event if you double tap the minute "tumbler" it will toggle it between 1 minute and 5 minute increments.
    This seems to only work in calendar (including 3rd party ones maybe) and not in say the Alarm app
    Here's another one for Apple Watch, at least watchOS 5, from Ali
      In any App outside the main watch face you can't typically access notifications or control center by swiping up or down as you normally would.
      So you'd press the digital crown and return to the main screen
      Well if you tap and hold at the bottom or top edge of the screen a handle will "peek" out and you can then swipe up or down to access the control center or notification center without needing to leave the current app.
      This seems to work everywhere EXCEPT on the app grid screen
  New devices with older Macs
    I have had a rash of folks who have had trouble connecting and syncing newer devices running iOS 12 to older Macs via iTunes
    All of them have been told by Apple support they need to get newer computers or to upgrade to macOS Mojave
    That sounded unlikely to me so I did some testing on my old 2008 iMac running macOS El Capitan and connecting my 2018 11-inch iPad Pro
    It did not work at first, but then I downloaded iTunes 12.8 from [Apple's site](https://www.apple.com/iTunes/download/)
    When I connected my iPad it said iTunes needed an additional "device" update, I said OK and once that installed everything worked as expected.
  Prepping an old Mac to sell, give away, or trade in
    Many of you may be getting new Macs for the holidays and might want to hand down, trade-in, sell or recycle your old Mac.
    Dan got a new MacBook Air, wanted to gift his old one to a relative and asked, "Beyond format and reinstalling what else do I need to do"
    Apple has a [good how to article](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201065) on their support site, but basically:
      Backup your data. Time Machine or cloning to an external HDD are good choices
      Sign out of iTunes
        Account > Authorizations > Deauthorize This Computer
        When prompted, enter your Apple ID and password
        Click Deauthorize
        If you forget your only option will be to "deauthorize" all computers then you have to reauthorize.
      Sign out of iCloud
        In System Preferences, click iCloud, and then click the Sign Out button.
        You will be prompted if you want to keep a copy of the iCloud data on your Mac. You can say OK, but will be erasing it later anyway.
        Your iCloud data remains in iCloud and on any other devices you've signed into with your Apple ID.
      Sign out of iMessage
        In the Messages app, choose Messages > Preferences, then click Accounts
        Select your iMessage account, then click Sign Out.
      Unpair any Bluetooth devices
        If you're not sending those along with the Mac. If you're using a desktop Mac you'll need a wired keyboard and mouse after this step.
        In System Preferences, click Bluetooth.
        System Preferences, then click Bluetooth.
        Click remove.
      Erase the hard drive and reinstall macOS
        Boot into recovery mode hold down 'R' when booting your Mac.
        In the macOS utilities window choose 'Disk Utility'
          Choose View > Show All Devices from the menu bar.
          From the sidebar in Disk Utility, select the disk or volume to erase.
          Click Erase and enter a name "macintosh HD", set the format to AFPS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and choose GUID Partition Map as the scheme.
            Choose APFS if you're installing macOS Mojave or macOS High Sierra with an SSD boot drive.
          Click Erase
        Quit disk utility when done then choose install macOS
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