Maccast 2017.09.02 - Show #626

Links

Opening

Opening Music

Music is Say Anything by Manda and the Marbles

News

Apple’s September is on the 12th

As expected Apple has made the date official. Tuesday September 12th, at 10:00 AM

'Let's Meet at Our Place' is the name

The big surprise, well sort of, is that they will inagurate the new 1,000 seat Steve Jobs Theater on the new Apple Park Campus

Announcements are expected for the new iPhone 8 and updated versions of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, Apple Watch Series 3, and a new Apple TV with 4K and HDR video support. Also iOS 11, macOS High Sierra, watchOS 4, and tvOS 11.

iPhone 8 feature round up

New edge to edge display design, with notch, no home button, "function" bar area, glass front and back.

Notch will not be "hidden" in apps that don't have a black background.

The status bar areas are reportedly being called the "ears" by some Apple employees

Holding of sleep/wake button may invoke Siri (worries about SOS?). Also will triple tap invoke assistive functionality?

Updated cameras and sensor with 3D IR facial recognition and depth sensing

Possibly named "iPhone 8 Edition", as rest of the line takes on the iPhone 8 moniker skipping the "s" series this time around.

Wish they'd do like they've done everywhere else and go with just iPhone and iPhone Pro (or Edition)

Storage of 64GB, 256GB, and 512GB

Starting at $999.00 USD

A Barclays analysts specualted Apple could bundle Apple Music and iCloud storage as an incentive to get consumers over the higher price tag.

Updated iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus

return to glass back, slightly bigger all around due to back glass.

Updated A11 processors and graphics

support for wireless charging andquick charging capabilities with USB 3-capable Lightning port

Apple Watch Series 3

Option for LTE

Faster processor and better battery life

Apple TV

4K and HDR support

One disappointing rumor is that Amazon Prime video app may not be ready at launch. Amazon during WWDC had tweeted that it would arrive “this year.”

More details on the 4K movie pricing. Studios want $25-30 on iTunes Apple wants it to stay at $20 HD price.

Not all studios are puching for the higher price.

It's believed the iPhones could ship as early as September 22nd, with pre-sales happening on Friday September 15th.

We still have future end of the year product to look forward to as well

iMac Pro

Intel recently introduced their new Xeon-W workstation-class processors

They seem to line up with what Apple has told us about the iMac Pro, since the come in come in 8, 10, and 18 core versions.

They come with BIG pricetags with the 8-core starting at $1,113 USD (retail).

Still an early runor claimed Apple may use Intel's server grade "Purley" Xeons.

iMac Pro will include Radeon Pro Vega graphics, up to 4TB of solid state storage space, four Thunderbolt 3 ports, up to 128GB of ECC RAM, and a redesigned thermal architecture

HomePod

For the future

ETNews is claiming Apple is working with Samsung on 5.85-inch and 6.46-inch displays for future iPhones.

A couple of iPhone Apple Pencil related patents, including one tht shows a smaller, stubby, Apple Pencil with an iPhone

iOS 11 and High Sierra are coming too

Apple has been feircely releasing new developer and public betas

latest versions released just one week apart

Also watchOS and tvOS betas

macOS High Sierra

Apple File System (APFS)

Systems with flash and SSD storage will be configured automatically —and users cannot opt-out of the transition

Systems with hard drives and Fusion drives won't be converted at all.

It's not clear if that means HDD and Fusion Drive volumes are not supported at all, but seem jsut like they won't be auto converted.

Devices formatted as HFS+ can be read and written to by devices formatted as APFS.

Drives formatted as APFS can be read and written by HFS+ formatted systems

Only High Sierra can boot from an APFS-formatted partition.

Boot Camp does not support reading to or writing from APFS volumes.

Volumes formatted with APFS can't offer share points over the network using AFP. SMB and NFS are supported when using APFS

High Efficiency Video Codec (HEVC)

Updated version of Metal with support for VR and external GPUs.

Updated Photos app with sidebar (back again)

iOS 11

This software "bar" on bottom of iPhone 8 screen for opening the Phone

Same gesture for enabling multitasking (like on iOS 11 on iPad)

Probably will also have a 4-icon dock

Improved Siri and Siri voice

It was made officail this week that responsibility for Siri technologies has moved from Eddie Cue to Craig Federighi.

Makes a lot more sense. Cue continues to oversee services and Apps, including Maps?

Apple Pay and Photos services enhancements

Do Not Disturb while Driving

"Messages in teh Cloud" was removed in beta 5, but Apple says it will be back in a future iOS 11 update.

ApplePay Cash tradmark filing in the EU.

watchOS

New Toy Story watch faces

Bug fixes and improvements

tvOS

updates and improvements

Make sure your iOS apps are all ready. Remember 32-bit support is gone.

Settings > General > About > Applications

My list: Tipulator, Retro Recorder, WhatTheFont, Life of George, Sphero Drive, and iSSH

Some old "classic" games like Ramp Champ and Ridiculous Fishing have recently been updated.

Apple adds Accenture to iOS business partnership

Similar to deals Apple already has for iOS in the Enterprise with IMB and Deloitte

Working to develop and sell tight integrations in "Internet of Things" for their clients and push the development of tools from Apple's business partners like Cisco and SAP.

Apple will help work with Accenture and their clients on migration services to get clinets aways from legacy systems and into more modern solutions driven by iOS apps.

The piece also specifically mentions the developemnt of augmented reality apps for people like service technitians in the field. Overlaying instructions or highlighting faulty parts on equipment.

Apple's push with iOS into enterprise has been gaining traction and these kinds of partnerships are helping.

Google AR core show why ARKit is HUGE

Google announed ARCore for Android which is based on their dedicated Tango project, but will use the camera, gyroscope, and other available sensors in an Android Smartphone instead of dedicated sensors and camera arrays.

Seems to be a direct response to Apple's ARKit, but Google's solution (at the moment) requires Android 7.0 Nougat and a Google Pixel or Samsung Galaxy S8

They say the hope is to support 100 million devices total at launch.

Just like Apple's ARKit, ARCore works with Unity and the Unreal Engine, as well as with Java and OpenGL.

So now it seems to be a race for who can have the "largest augmented reality platform" in the world. Apple claimed the titel at WWDC.

Based on ARKit working when it launches with iOS 11, on any iPhone that is running an A9 processor. Potentially 381 million phones. about 80 percent of owners upgrade, so say about 300 million

Right now there are approximately 20 million Samsung Galaxy S8s and about 1 to 5 million Pixels in the world.

Regardless of which company "wins" consumers are going to win with great AR apps regardless of their platform of choice.

Smart Bands rumored again

This time around based on several patents recently published

Based on advanced fabric manufacturing technology.

Building features and electronic controls into woven bands and materials.

Could be sensors, buttons, switches, cameras, displays, vibrators, and more.

Also, fabric sensing device. Capacitive fabric band, inclusing possibly force touch sensing.

IDC release dnumbers showing Apple watch is by far the worlds most popular Smartwatch

An estimated 49.6 percent market share in the April-June period

The IDC estimate was 3.4 millions units, though Strategy Analytics put their estimate at 2.8 million

In werables, IDC showed Apple with a 13 percent marketshare in the second quarter, putting it in 2nd place just behine Xiaomi and just ahead of Fitbit

Like the Apple Watch AirPods seem to also be dominating their market segment

NPD numbers estimate that AirPoid sales in the US have raked in 85 percent of "totally wireless" headphone dollar sales.

This is only headsets that don;t have wires between the earpieces, but still.

AirPods have had a 98 percent customer satisifaction rate

Apple Studios taking shape?

We already have heard Apple plabs to spend a Billion on original programming in 2018

For comparison Netflix is planning a $7B spend.

The Financial Times is reporting that Apple is bidding on a new drama series starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, battling against Netflix for rights.

The show conceopt is reportedly related to morning television chat shows

The Financial Times also says that Apple is looking for office space at the famous Culver Studios in Hollywood, which includes thirteen soundstages.

Films like Gone With The Wind and The Matrix were also shot there.

The space would be used as the base of operations for thier original content efforts under the direction of former Sony TV execs Jamie Ehrlicht and Zack Van Amburg whom Apple hired ealier this year.

So far it feels like Apple's orignal content efforts on Apple Music, Planet of the Apps and Carpool Karaoke, are being met with pretty unfavorable reviews.

Hopefully with the new budget and management things will get better.

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Feedback, commentary, opinions

Freedom vs. Car Service

Lots of great feedback on my thoughts of Apple developing "car as a service".

The biggest concern I heard was "loss of freedom" that owning a car and having it in the driveway provides.

I see a couple ways this is addressed:

For sure it will need to achive "ubiquity" and that won't happen at first. Service will likely roll out to more city and heavily populated areas first. My guess is you would need to have a 5 minute response time for acceptance.

Before you say this is impossible… AI will likely play a big role in this. Most people have pretty set life patterns with a few exceptions.

Emergencies, what if I need to get to the hospital?

If you can't wait 5 minutes then likely you need an ambulance

What about my stuff?

Baby seats, bike racks, the stuff I keep in my car, my entertanment?

For sure some of those thinsg would change

Entertainment, if done right, will follow you.

Your music, etc. will be on your Phone and communicatde to the car.

Also your messaging and communication.

Even bigger, your travel preferences, like climate settings, stereo volume, etc.

Multi-car families that can become single car families. Have the best of both worlds.

Point is, this is going to be part of our future. It already is with the growing popularity of ride sharing services. All that will change will be the driver (none) and the in car experience.

Why Samsung Pay and not Apple Pay

I had some feedback on this and I thought I might have mentioned it here alreday, but after checking the notes and listenting I don't hink I did.

Michael sent me an email and pointed out that even with NFC disabled on the terminals Samsung Pay can still work

Some Samsung phones can use a featire called magnetic secure transmission (MST). The phone emits a magnetic signal that simulates the magnetic strip found on the back of a credit or debit card.

Cleaning up contacts

A couple shows back we heard from John who was travelling overseas and using a local SIM and found the need to have to add the international calling code to numbers in his contacts.

Back in the sates he wanted to clean that up and asked about bulk editing apps, but I really had no clue.

The Maccast community came through with some recommendations

Adam says he uses an app in the Mac App Store called [Contacts Cleaner]( https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/contacts-cleaner/id411369012?mt=12)

He uses it to standardize the area code format in all his records and notes it does have a feature to add the international prefix.

Richard recommended [Contacts Optimizer]( http://www.mobiledit.com/contacts-optimizer) fro iOS. He used it to clean up after a similar trip to Europe.

You probably will want to make sure you backup your Contacts first

Always a good idea before doing any sort of bulk edits on anything.

1. Launch the Contacts app on your Mac.

2. Click on File in the menu bar at the top of the screen.

3. Click Export.

4. Click on Contacts Archive.

5. Name the save file, choose where you'd like to save, and click Save.

Drag to backup

Launch the Contacts app on your Mac.

Click All Contacts on the left.

Click a contact.

Type command+A to select all of your contacts.

Click and drag your contacts to your desktop.

This will create a vCard file (.vcf) with all the contacts in it.

If you want you can also drag single contacts out to create a vCard for each contact record.

Use iCloud.com

Go to iCloud.com and Sign in.

Click Contacts.

Click a contact.

Type command+A which will select all contacts.

Click the gear icon in the bottom left of the window.

Click Export vCard.

Podcast "Episode Unavailable"

Our buddy Mark is having a bit of trouble with some of his podcasts and the Apple Podcast app.

Play comment from Mark

My thoughts

Siri do you know my name?

Rich wrote in with a bit of a Siri problem.

He uses Siri to place phone calls, send emails, and texts to his family, specifically his daughter Sarah.

The trouble is that if he says, "Hola, Siri send a text to Sarah" the response he gets is, "I have found several Sarah's in your contacts. Which Sarah do you want?"

So Richard asks, where's the AI? Can't Siri be a bit smarter about knowing that the "Sarah" he texts with most often, his daughter, is the Sarah he wants?

I would say, yes that seems logical, but in practice I'm not sure it is. What about the opposite scenario? Now you want to text or call a Sarah this isn't your daughter?

I understand what you'd prefer is that you only have to use first and last name in situations where the person is NOT a family member

What's intesting is that I did some testing and I was able to use just the first names of my wife, kids, and Mom and Siri was able to figure that out just fine for me

Maybe bacause they all share my lastname?

I also have set up relationships in contacts, so maybe that's part of it?

Some things you could do/try:

Set up the relationship in contacts and then just use that, "Text my daughter" or "Text my daughter Sarah".

Do this manually or by saying to Siri, Name is my Relationship.

Add a "nickname", can't be "Sarah" I don't think, but maybe a pet name?

Just always say first and last name.

Fun thing to try, "Yo Siri, call me: The King". From then on in responses where she typically would say your name she'll use the nicjname you gave her.

Migrating iTunes library to an External drive

Chris asked if I could re-cover this. It's been several years.

I keep mine all on a 2TB external USB powered 2.5" HDD.

Pretty simple acutally.

1) Open iTunes.

2) Go to 'Preferences' > Advanced

3) Note the current iTunes Media folder location and make sure "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" are both checked. Click OK.

4) Under 'File' menu choose 'Library' > 'Organize Library'

5) In the dialog box check 'Consolidate Files' and click OK.

6) Now go to the folder you noted in the "iTunes Media folder" location. Typically '~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media' and copy the entire 'iTunes Media' to the external drive.

7) After it's copied, in iTunes Preferences again, go to Advanced and click 'Change…' for the iTunes Media folder locationa nd point it at the iTunes Media folder on the external drive. Click OK

8) I laso like to go back after the move and run 'Consolodate Files' again.

If you ever launch iTunes without the external volume attached to will automatically point back at your '~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media' location. Once the external is re-attached it will point back.

Note that anything downloaded when your external was not attached will be on the local drive location.

You can move it back to the external and fix the pointers by attaching the external and tunning the 'File' > 'Library' > 'Consolidate Files' again.

Closing

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