Safari Technology Preview is a standalone application that can be used side-by-side with Safari or other web browsers, making it easy to compare behaviors between them. Besides having the latest web features and bug fixes from WebKit, Safari Technology Preview includes the latest improvements to Web Inspector, which you can use to develop and debug your websites. Updates for Safari Technology Preview will be available every two weeks through the Updates pane of the Mac App Store.
Safari Technology Preview takes a snapshot of the WebKit nightlies, about once a fortnight, and packages into a working web browser. Safari Technology Preview is not going to be as stable as a formal public release but the idea is that it is stable enough, such that web developers could use it as their primary browser.
By comparison, WebKit nightlies are often very buggy and using that as your daily browser is just unfeasible due to the high chance of it crashing. Safari Technology Preview also packages in iCloud support and automatic updates through the Mac App Store (even though you initially download the app from a website).
It’s a convenient way to stay closer to the bleeding edge of web technologies. If this sounds familiar, it’s almost identical to the strategy Google uses for Chrome, with Chrome Canary builds. Safari Technology Preview (with its annoyingly wordy name) also comes with a slick purple sundial its dock icon. So there’s that.
One notable inclusion in the first release of the developer browser is inclusion for JavaScript’s @document.execCommand()@ cut-copy-paste API. Until now, it was not possible for JavaScript to programatically trigger pasteboard actions. The common workaround was using an embedded Flash component to perform the copying, as Flash embeds do have native access to the pasteboard. By bringing this API to JS, it removes one of the last big barriers for websites to drop Flash completely.
Sony Corp. is planning to sell a more powerful version of its PlayStation 4 machine to handle higher-end game experiences, including virtual reality, people familiar with the matter said, while continuing production of its existing console that has so far sold more than 36 million units world-wide.
Sounds like an iPhone release cycle, an ‘S’ model. It’s not much of a surprise if you follow the industry, Microsoft has also announced plans to treat the Xbox more like a personal computer.
This would mean incremental upgrades to the hardware (internal components) periodically. This isn’t completely unprecedented — both Microsoft and Sony have released stop-gap ‘new’ hardware to spike sales in the console cycle, through ‘Slim’ redesigns. Those were more aesthetic upgrades than anything; the body became thinner and sleeker but the internal components remained the same as the 1.0 hardware.
The Wall Street Journal report says the new upgraded PlayStation 4 will have the same games catalogue as the PlayStation 4 but it isn’t clear how the games would benefit would from the additional GPU and CPU enhancements. Any change in internals will cause some frictions for developers, who will have to dedicate additional engineering resources to optimise for the improvements provided by the better components. It did indicate that the new strategy is partly to account for the upcoming virtual reality headsets, which demand more compute power by their nature.
I also think that the move to minor, iterative hardware updates is also a counter to the world of smart devices. The graphics chips inside iPhone, iPad and Apple TV (arguably the closest competitor to traditional games consoles) are catching up quickly. If games console makers continued their old-style plans of elongated seven-year cycles, they would likely be surpassed by smartphones, tablets and set-top boxes before the next-generation flagship consoles came around.
A state-of-the-art oxygen respirator, that allows you to breathe underwater up to 45 minutes and at a maximum depth of 15ft by utilizing our ‘artificial gills’ technology. Swim among tropical fish, marvel at exotic coral and experience the serene beauty of marine life − without having to come up for air. Welcome to Triton.
This cannot be anything but a scam. I refuse to believe it. They are saying they are filtering dissolved oxygen from the water. The problem is, there isn’t that much oxygen available in water and the human body needs a lot of it. Even assuming that water filtration at that size is feasible, you would have to pump hundreds of litres of water every minute to not drown. I’m sure there are a thousand other reasons why this proposition is ridiculous too. This Reddit thread has many more rebuttals to read at leisure.
It’s a farfetched claim and not backed up by any evidence. The campaign page includes some photos of the ‘prototype’ and a video. The video shows the product but offers no proof of any of their underwater breathing claims. The video footage never shows the product actually in use by a person for more than 30 seconds.
Most humans can stay underwater for 30 seconds without needing to breath; there is no attempt to show that the device is what is allowing the diver to stay submerged. When I used to swim competitively, I could stay swimming underwater for almost two minutes without breathing. Trained free divers can do many more minutes.
If I had really invented a product that let people breathe freely underwater for 45 minutes, I would prove it by recording a video of someone staying underwater for a prolonged period, at least longer than the world record set by un-aided humans. In some shots from Titron, the diver seems too buoyant — forcibly pushing himself to stay underwater. To me, that suggests the guy merely gulped a lot of air into his lungs moments before the camera started rolling.
Also, note that Indiegogo has no verification process whatsoever for its campaigns. No crowdfunding site has a watertight approval process, but at least Kickstarter requires some basic accountability checks before the fundraising goes public. Reality check: this thing is on crowdfunding. A truly legitimate product of this nature would not need the Internet for investment. Any millionaire investor or private company, probably the Army, would fund a thing like this in seconds, if it was real.
I would actively bet $299 that this thing is fake. And yet, somehow, the Titron campaign has accrued $700,000 in pledges so far with a month still to go. It has already seen mass media recognition from over 30 well-known media outlets. Sigh, signed the internet.
With screen brightness set to maximum, the 29W adapter was able to charge the iPad Pro, albeit a bit slowly. Ultimately, it reached almost 15% in 20 minutes of charging.
With screen brightness set to maximum, the 12W adapter could basically only hold the current charge. When using the iPad Pro with screen brightness set to max, I’ve seen the iPad Pro actually lose charge, even when connected to the 12W power source.
As a 12.9 inch iPad Pro owner, I was naturally stung by the improvements that Apple managed to roll into the new 9.7 inch version (new screen technology, better cameras). At the end of the day, though, I can’t really be upset. I bought the product at the time with the features that it had. As an Apple commentator, I definitely wouldn’t want Apple to hold back on features for the new iPad Pro just to make the few million people who bought the bigger model not feel hard done by.
What I do think is unacceptable is the power adapter that Apple ships with the big iPad Pro. The wattage is simply not high enough; the 12.9 inch iPad battery takes forever to charge using the bundled adapter. It is bad. As part of the announcements on Monday, Apple has released a new USB-C to Lightning cable, meaning the iPad Pro can now connect to Apple’s more powerful 29 W USB-C charger (also used by the Retina MacBook).
This higher-wattage charger should come bundled in the box with all new 12.9 inch iPad Pros sold. I don’t care that it didn’t exist at first. The current charger Apple ships is mediocre, bordering on unacceptable. It barely does the job: you can’t use the iPad whilst charging and expect the battery percentage to go up. Apple should not punish new Pro customers with the 12 watt charger just because it shipped a 12 watt charger initially. Now that something better is available, include that in the box. Enough said.
Apple has been telling potential partners that its payment service, which lets shoppers complete a purchase on mobile apps with their fingerprint rather than by entering credit card details, is expanding to websites later this year, multiple sources told Re/code.
The service will be available to shoppers using the Safari browser on models of iPhones and iPads that possess Apple’s TouchID fingerprint technology, these people said. Apple has also considered making the service available on Apple laptops and desktops, too, though it’s not clear if the company will launch that capability.
I’m not surprised that it is looking to expand beyond NFC and in-app payments, especially given that rumours are circulating that Apple is already developing a person-to-person Apple Pay feature. Apple has clear incentives here: a strong payments ecosystem attracts developers and companies, Apple Pay improves the user experience for buying things on Apple devices, and the company earns money from every transaction.
The Re/code report floats the idea of Apple Pay checkout coming to Mac as well, for desktop websites. Apple Pay’s conveniences are lessened in the absence of a fingerprint reader for the authentication. Perhaps, this is the year MacBooks get embedded Touch ID sensors.
Yesterday’s Apple event was a strange affair. It was uncharacteristically short, just over an hour, despite featuring significant new announcements for its flagship product lines. If you take out Apple’s extended discussion of its environment and health efforts, the products themselves were on stage for under half an hour. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s just unusual.
A lot of this is because Apple’s new iPhone SE and 9.7 inch iPad Pro were self-explanatory. Smaller iPhone with near-identical design and latest internals, smaller iPad Pro with near-identical design latest (or better) internals. There just wasn’t much interesting stuff to explain or demo. That doesn’t mean these products suck or aren’t important. They are critical additions to the lineup which is why they get an event in the first place. I don’t think Apple could ever announce a new iPhone without a press conference of some ilk: it’s too mainstream.
One theme I saw very clearly was lower pricing. Apple dropped the entry price to so much stuff. I love it, it’s a very positive move. The Apple Watch is $50 cheaper. The iPad Air (2) is $100 cheaper. Moreover, the iPhone is now accessible at $399 off-contract.
Side-stepping the 16 GB plague, price-conscious customers have great options now. Leading up to the event, I was skeptical about the usefulness of an iPhone SE to Apple. Frankly, I wasn’t expecting them to sell it that cheaply. $499 for a 64 GB iPhone SE is under my prediction for what the 16 GB model would cost. $499 is marginally more expensive than what the 16 GB iPhone 5s sold for just 24 hours ago … crucially the SE also features the latest components: top-of-the-range CPU and GPU, fantastic camera and such.
Even the Apple Watch’s $50 drop makes it exponentially more appealing: recommending someone pick up a Sport feels like a lot less of a burden and the pricing is way closer to the Android smartwatch competition. Whatever you can say about the Apple Watch’s flaws, I strongly believe it’s better than what Samsung currently offers (assuming you use an iPhone). And now it’s even cheaper. I hope Apple can sustain the lower starting price when Apple Watch 2 hits later in the year.
Miitomo, a free messaging-based application, reached No. 1 among social-networking apps in Japan on Apple Inc.’s iOS devices on the day of its release, market researcher App Annie said on Friday. Line, the country’s most popular instant messenger, fell to second place.
Nintendo is seeking to bring back players who migrated away from games on company’s dedicated hardware, such as the Wii and handheld DS devices.
I really couldn’t care less about Nintendo’s social networking app but I hope its success in the App Store means the company will dedicate more resources to mobile going forward. Quality games with top-tier IP (Mario, Pokemon) and Nintendo would easily become one of the biggest game publishers for iOS. I also have little resignation in believing that Apple would willingly help Nintendo establish itself as an iPhone and iPad game maker.
For all the talk about the App Store being unsustainable, the iOS games industry is big, big, business. Nintendo expects profits to top $300 million for the year. A handful of top iOS games make that same money in one month. Nintendo could do well with any pricing model. If it decides to employ a freemium model on these titles to maximise income, then so be it. I’d rather the company follow a somewhat-slimy business path than experience a principled demise. I think Pokemon is the obvious choice to translate to a freemium monetisation scheme. There are so many elements of a Pokemon game that could include real-money purchases (even if it would upset purist gamers, myself included). That becomes the company’s new cash cow.
In regards to their console efforts, I would drop the handheld line. The dedicated TV games console market is still penetrable. Nintendo can keep making hardware there, if you want, for a few years at least. Cede the mobile hardware to smartphones and tablets.
Nearly three years since they officially blessed it with “partner” access (and after 14 billion emoji tweets tracked), Twitter has decided to shut Emojitracker down.
To be more accurate, they are removing its elevated access to the Streaming API that Emojitracker depends on in order to operate at its high volume:
I understand why Emojitracker is getting its privileged access revoked; a firehose stream is precious scarce resource and expensive to maintain for free. Twitter wants to be able to sell the elevated stream to people, so giving it away to fun apps like Emojitracker undermines the value of it.
In this particular instance, Twitter’s actions are probably reasonable and fair. However, it did twig my mind about something. I am yet to see any positive change in Twitter developer policy following Dorsey’s apology and promise to make things better. Maybe good stuff is in the pipeline and it hasn’t surfaced yet to the world. I hope so. Ironically, Jack Dorsey publicised Emojitracker just two months ago. Now, his company is shutting it down.
Interesting interview with Zane Lowe: the similarities between Lowe talking about music and Ive talking about Apple’s latest hardware in a white room are striking. They even look similar physically. I think Apple Music is in good hands with talent like this onboard.
On multiple occasions, Lowe mentions that it has no constraints on what artists can broadcast. I find that slightly amusing given Beats 1’s strict censorship of profanity across all of their shows. Even funnier is that Lowe himself naturally swears multiple times in the interview, suggesting that he doesn’t exactly portray the brutal honesty he preaches when on air either.
Inside the towering Four Seasons hotel in downtown Seoul, the game was approaching the end of its first hour when AlphaGo instructed its human assistant to place a black stone in a largely open area on the right-hand side of the 19-by-19 grid that defines this ancient game. And just about everyone was shocked.
“That’s a very strange move,” said one of the match’s English language commentators, who is himself a very talented Go player. Then the other chuckled and said: “I thought it was a mistake.” But perhaps no one was more surprised than Lee Sedol, who stood up and left the match room.
It’s great that computer AI has done something previously thought impossible, if not extremely far into the future. What’s more interesting to me, is that it is playing moves that surprise (and flummox) humans. It plays moves that the top ranking players would never consider. The fact that new strategies are still being discovered in a game that is both thousands of years old and ‘relatively’ simple, using just two types of pieces and a 19x19 finite grid, is amazing.
So the file system key (which the FBI claims it is scared will be destroyed by the phone’s auto-erase security protection) is stored in the Effaceable Storage on the iPhone in the “NAND” flash memory. All the FBI needs to do to avoid any irreversible auto erase is simple to copy that flash memory (which includes the Effaceable Storage) before it tries 10 passcode attempts. It can then re-try indefinitely, because it can restore the NAND flash memory from its backup copy.
Edward Snowden publicly drew attention to this argument on a conference call yesterday, citing it as ‘one example’ method to hack the iPhone 5c’s data. If this is technically possible, why is Apple not flagging this up for its arguments. Tim Cook and co have repeatedly said they know no other way to get into this phone. It is in their interest to find other ways to end the San Bernardino debacle and they have sworn under oath to tell the truth as well. I find it very hard to believe that Apple is ignorant to fruitful alternative strategies.
By the way, if this is true, then Apple can only see this a security vulnerability. If it works today, it won’t work with future hardware. The underlying argument over encryption and government data access rights is not subsided by this revelation, if validated.
There are apps like iCloud Drive which I’d like to see become a whole lot more like Dropbox, and Game Center which I’d like to see become a setting and not just a standalone app. Then there’s always the dream of being able to remove some of the built-in apps … maybe one day.
The iPad Pro, in general, needs a lot of work on spacing with full-screen apps like Messages and Mail, which use way too much white space currently. And there’s the need for universal landscape support on the Plus-sized iPhones, Split View for every stock app on the latest iPads, and the other low-hanging fruit that I mentioned at the opening, but each of these relatively small updates would advance the platform greatly for me.
Both iPhone 6s 3D Touch and iPad Pro multitasking are under-utilised by Apple’s stock apps with current versions of iOS 9. My philosophy is that Apple’s apps should be the best iOS citizens possible. It doesn’t matter if they are used by a lot of people or not, they are the standard by which other apps should have to meet.
I mean, look at Compass. That app is a prime candidate for a third-party App Store offering, and yet Apple made its own app incredibly beautiful and surprisingly functional. The spirit level UI is one of my favourite parts of iOS and a signature design element of the flat aesthetic. Every Apple stock app should have Compass’ attention to detail and should show off the capabilities of the system wherever possible. Hence, the lack of 3D Touch shortcuts and incomplete support for iPad multitasking in iOS 9 was very disappointing.
I am sad that this is the case, but it is. iOS 9.3 takes some steps to rectify obvious holes in 3D Touch support with the addition of quick actions for many more stock apps. I hope iOS 10 focuses on iPad Pro as a real member of the iOS line, not some awkward half cousin. This means complete split screen multitasking support for all stock apps (Settings, come on!) as well as a pass over the entire OS to clean up rough edges, which were clearly not designed for a 12 inch canvas.
If Apple doesn’t want to commit engineers to continue developing these apps for every device type Apple sells, then fine. Delete them from the OS in that case. End of story.
But there’s an exception, a loophole, in Apple’s unyielding stance on privacy and encryption: its iCloud service, and, specifically, iCloud Backup — the convenient and comforting automatic way in which iPhones and iPads back themselves up to the cloud daily.
Unlike the iPhone hardware itself, Apple retains the ability to decrypt most of what’s in an iCloud backup. And the company on occasion turns the contents of iCloud backups over to the FBI and other law enforcement agencies when a proper legal warrant or court order is presented.
This is correct, at least with current Apple devices and operating systems. I think the iCloud loophole has been overlooked in the current Apple/FBI court proceedings. The FBI seems to conduct its current business with the foregone belief that the ability to retrieve and decrypt iCloud backups will always exist. Even Apple has helped solidify this feeling, by focusing so much on the password reset blunder that prevented more recent iCloud backups in the San Bernardino case from being available to law enforcement. I think the FBI mindset is that if Apple remains steadfast in its right to lock down the physical phone, it will at least have iCloud backups to fallback to.
No one on at the congressional hearing brought up a future scenario where iCloud backups are not decryptable. I think that’s a huge error. I have no doubt that Apple will close the iCloud loophole very soon, probably with iOS 10. Apple is on a one-way path where it will secure and lock down anything and everything it can, in the scope of the law.
End-to-end encryption for iCloud is an inevitability and, when it happens, the FBI is going to be truly locked out of phone data. When discussing the balance of privacy and public safety, people need to keep in mind that data accessible today will almost certainly not be accessible tomorrow. There’s a huge difference between being able to retrieve some data and no data from a suspect’s phone. I don’t want new legislation to be based on the current state of technology, when it’s an evolving issue with a clear trajectory for Apple to go as private as possible.
Apple will further differentiate the next-generation 9.7-inch iPad from its predecessor by making it part of the new iPad Pro line, according to sources. Much like the MacBook Pro comes in 13-inch and 15-inch sizes, the iPad Pro will soon come in 9.7-inch and 12.9-inch variations. This trend follows Apple not calling its 12-inch MacBook a new Air despite developing the product as an apparent successor to the MacBook Air.
I think 16 GB is finally dead, so I’m guessing the new 9.7 inch Pro will start at 32 GB. The price of the 32 GB iPad Pro is $799. The price of the 64 GB iPad Air 2 is $599; Apple has never offered a 32 GB variant for the iPad Air 2. There’s a convenient gap in the price tiers for the new 32 GB Pro to fill: the $699 price point. You could argue the new Pro should start at $599 for 32 GB but the overlap of pricing is messy, in my opinion.
The ramifications of this are interesting; the new 9.7 inch tablet will be more expensive than the previous generation. It will raise the ticket price by $100 compared against the mid-range iPad Air 2. The price increases stretches to $200, if you consider that the entry-level models of new versus are priced at $499 and $699 (assuming a 16 GB 9.7 inch Pro is not sold). I see no reason for the iPad Air 2 price to fall; that model continues to sell well and keeping it steady should raise overall iPad ASP.
Instead of integrating Siri as a swipe menu akin to the Mac’s Notification Center or as a full screen view like on the iPhone and even the iPad Pro, Siri for the Mac will live in the Mac’s Menu Bar. Similar to the Spotlight magnifying glass icon for search and notifications icon for Notification Center, a Siri icon in the top right corner of the menu bar will activate the voice control feature.
Siri on the Mac will have its own pane in System Preferences and users are said to also have the option to choose a keyboard shortcut for activating the service. Like with recent versions of iOS, users will be able to enable Siri at the first startup of OS X 10.12, according to sources. If the Mac running the new OS X version is plugged into power, a “Hey Siri” command will work much like with recent iPhone and iPad models.
The mockup looks pretty in terms of how the overlay displayed but I think the Siri button in the menu bar is an annoying default. Gurman doesn’t specify, but I’m assuming it will be a default icon that can be removed (hold ⌘ and drag with the mouse, like other menu items). If it is fixed in place, like the Spotlight icon is on El Capitan … well that would really suck.
Activation through ‘Hey Siri’ or a keyboard shortcut should suffice. Note how on iOS, there is no persistent button or Siri app visible in the interface — you can only activate with voice or the Home Button long press. If Apple really does want an onscreen indicator, I think they should incorporate it into the transient Spotlight window. Although Siri and Spotlight are not the same, they do overlap a lot in functionality, so connecting the features together makes sense. It’s hard to justify two permanent fixtures in the menubar when the features share so much common ground.
Unfortunately, whether by bug or intentional design, the Pencil’s navigational prowess appears to have vanished in the iOS 9.3 public betas. With 9.3, you can no longer scroll or manipulate text; the only places the Pencil works are on canvas or when pressing digital buttons.
Normally, I don’t write about beta bugs and features, because it’s a beta: There are always bugs, and features change. But this functionality is important enough that I wanted to talk about it before Apple submits its final 9.3 release. It could be a bug, yes: But several betas in, we’ve seen fixes for Smart Connector keyboards and new features, and the Pencil remains crippled.
It’s hard to interpret this new behaviour as a bug when the interactivity hasn’t changed at all by beta 3 of Apple’s next major OS release and release notes do not acknowledge the errant behaviour as a known bug. Sadly, I think this is intentional.
It’s annoying on two levels. First, the Pencil worked pretty well as a stylus input for the iPad Pro universally. Although the feature was clearly not meant to enable a new primary input device, the Pencil was good enough at it that my human nature (laziness) meant I would use the Pencil to tap on things and scroll around instinctively, rather than readjust my grip and use traditional touch input.
Secondly, even if Apple does want to limit the Pencil going forward as a drawing-only utility the current iOS betas don’t reflect that. You can still use the Pencil for some things outside of sketching or painting — you still can tap on some things and press UI buttons. You just can’t scroll or pan. If it is intentional, it shouldn’t work at all outside of a drawing app.
It’s either desired behaviour, buggy or really buggy. I’m hoping it is the latter but with just weeks until iOS 9.3’s public release and otherwise observed stability in the seeds, I am not optimistic.