Tag Archives: Apple

Ten years before the iPad

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Apple introduced the iPad in 2010. Does the following excerpt from Neal Stephenson’s novel, Cryptonomicon (punished in 1999) sound familiar?

“Here’s how it works. You are an Overseas Contract Worker. Before you leave home for Saudi or Singapore or Seattle or wherever, you buy or rent a little gizmo from us. It’s about the size of a paperback book and encases a thimble-sized video camera, a tiny screen, and a lot of memory chips. The components come from all over the place—they are shipped to the free port at Subic and assembled in a Nipponese plant there. So they cost next to nothing. Anyway, you take this gizmo overseas with you. Whenever you feel like communicating with the folks at home, you turn it on, aim the camera at yourself, and record a little video greeting card. It all goes onto the memory chips. It’s highly compressed. Then you plug the gizmo into a phone line and let it work its magic.”

Apple AirPods

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When Apple introduced AirPods (September 2016) they got the usual ration of shit. Look funny; over-priced; uncomfortable; etc. This year Apple will sell 50 million of these. About $8 billion in revenue. In the last couple of years I’ve seen more and more of these sprouting from ears. People who never tried Bluetooth “headphones” are taking to AirPods. I spotted this gentleman in the supermarket. He said he leaves one in all the time. Forgets it’s there.

True Detective (Season One) on iPhone with AirPods

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My Apple AirPods continue to open up new worlds of sound. I watched (and liked) the first season of the HBO series True Detective (Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson) on a TV. Last night I started watching the series again but this time on my iPhone with AirPods. As with Deadwood, it was a completely different experience. The music was far more powerful and evocative. The texture of the actors voices was richer. (You could almost hear the smoke when McConaughey exhaled) Not sure I can go back to listening to sound coming from across the room.

In praise of AirPods

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Everyone’s familiar with stories of someone regaining their sight after years of blindness… or getting their hearing back after a lifetime of silence. That’s what came to mind as I started watching movies and series on my iPhone with AirPods (ver 2).

It’s like I’ve been listening with cotton stuffed in my ears. Hard to overstate how getting all of the sound changes the viewing experience.

Halfway through season one of Deadwood and I’m right there in the muddy street, engulfed in the sounds of the camp. Horses breathing, a distant hammering, the full range of Ian McShane’s mellifluous voice.

I’m ruined. I can’t go back to listening to what passes for sound coming from the TV across the room.

AirPods 2

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Walked into the living room a couple of days ago and discovered Riley chewing on something. One of my AirPods. Just crunched it a little but that was enough so I had my excuse to order the new AirPods 2 (not sure what they call this second generation). I’d read and heard the sound was even better. From a Reddit  user:

First of all, the new AirPods are loud. When comparing the new and old AirPods at the same volume, the new AirPods clearly sound louder. Along with an increase in power, there is an improvement in the overall sound space.

Try listening to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The old AirPods provide a familiar well-balanced sound, but with the new AirPods, you can feel in an instant the rich chorus work and expressive power of the music. Freddie Mercury’s vocals have a high resolution such that you can feel the breath that remains after he speaks. After listening to this, the sound of the old AirPods seems flat.

I listened to the song this morning and have to say it sounded damned good. And I can now summon Siri without tapping one of the pods. (Siri responds with “Uh huh?”)

Ten year old iPhone

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The phone on the left is a 3GS from 2009. Fits the palm of my hand. Barb found it in the back of a drawer. I’d forgotten how small the early phones were (the phone on the right is a XS). I still prefer the smaller phones but that ship has sailed.

What Apple knows about its customers

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A week ago Apple started allowing U.S. users to download all of their data from the company, following a GDPR-mandated feature for EU citizens that launched in May. A friend and long-time Apple user took them up on the offer and after almost a week he got it.

They have a lot of info on me.  Every item I purchased from Apple since 2003.  Every time I called Support.  Every time I had something repaired.  Every survey I replied to and how I answered.  Every app or song I downloaded and the IP address I downloaded it from.  Every time they sent me marketing email and if I opened it and what device I looked at it on.

Honestly, I’m not sure I want to know. Same for Amazon.

Face ID

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From day-one I was happy with the iPhone’s Touch ID. So I was skeptical when Apple eliminated the home button (and Touch ID) and replaced it with Face ID. But works as advertised. It works so well I forget it’s working. And I guess I don’t care that much how it works. From iMore.com:

Face ID uses multiple neural networks that are built into the dual-core A11 bionic neural engine to process the facial recognition data. It takes a mathematical model of your face and checks it against the original scan of your face that you first registered.

The information is stored on the A11 chip on your iPhone X and not sent to Apple’s servers, so your facial identity is kept private.

It uses a Require Attention feature in order to work. That means you have to be looking at your iPhone for it to scan, You can’t be asleep or looking away for it to unlock your iPhone. […] It doesn’t work with photographs. It doesn’t work while you’re asleep. It doesn’t even work with detailed silicon masks that look just like you.

I tried to think of a way to make some sort of screencast to show how well this feature works but… there’s almost nothing to show. When my phone ‘sees’ my face — and only my face — it unlocks.