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Samsung expected to unveil Galaxy S11 on Feb. 11

 

By AppleInsider Staff
Monday, January 06, 2020, 04:42 pm PT (07:42 pm ET)

Samsung plans to hold its first Galaxy Unpacked event of 2020 on Feb. 11, where the company is expected to unveil a new flagship handset and, potentially, a fresh foldable design similar to the Motorola Razr.

Galaxy

Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked teaser.

Announced on Saturday, Unpacked is set to take place at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts on Feb. 11 at 11 a.m. Pacific, and promises to deliver “new, innovative devices that will shape the next decade of mobile experiences,” according to Samsung. The company will live stream the event on its website.

Samsung is widely rumored to unveil three new smartphones with Galaxy S11 branding. Like the current Galaxy S10 line, Samsung’s 2020 lineup is expected to arrive with three distinct screen sizes — 6.4, 6.7 and 6.9 inches — and borrow heavily from existing hardware, but each will share a number of technological improvements including 5G connectivity and a massive 5,000 mAh battery.

Camera specs will undoubtedly improve, as insiders suggest the new hardware to feature a 108-megapixel rear-shooter, 5x optical zoom at certain focal lengths and next-generation video software. A front-facing camera is anticipated to reside in a “hole-punch” cutout in the S11’s edge-to-edge display, which itself could see an upgrade with support for 120Hz refresh rates.

There are rumblings that Samsung could expand its foldable phone slate with a new model that bends along its x-axis, similar to the recently resurrected Motorola Razr. The company last year introduced Galaxy Fold, a half-phablet, half-tablet device that folds in two like a book.

Pricing and full specifications have yet to leak, but the S11 will likely be positioned to compete with Apple’s iPhone 11 and 11 Pro smartphones.

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Internet Explorer 5 developer describes frustrations of working with Steve Jobs

On the 20th anniversary of Internet Explorer 5 for Mac, one of its key developers reveals how Apple’s Steve Jobs ignored agreements, and made Microsoft pull features from its browser.

Composite reconstruction of Internet Explorer 5's splash screen on a typical browser window of the time.

Composite reconstruction of Internet Explorer 5’s splash screen on a typical browser window of the time.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 Macintosh Edition was announced on January 5, 2000 at Macworld Expo, where Steve Jobs demonstrated it alongside OS X. Now on the 20th anniversary of that demo, developer Jimmy Grewal has been describing both how the influential app was created —and how he and his team would come to regret giving in to Jobs’s demands.

“MacIE 5 was built by a team of [around] 40 talented & dedicated people in Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit (MacBU) based in San Jose, CA.,” says Grewal in a Twitter thread. “I joined that team fresh out of university in June ’99 and helped design some of the features of MacIE 5, and also managed the Mac OS X version.”

Internet Explorer 5 for Mac featured a design highly reminiscent of the early OS X desktop, though Grewal says this was coincidence —at least on Microsoft’s part.

“This ‘new look’ had an uncanny resemblance to Apple’s later Aqua interface for Mac OS X,” continues Grewal. “However it was developed in complete secrecy within Microsoft. When we previewed MacIE 5… to Apple in the Summer of 1999, Jobs was not pleased.”

In an accompanying blog on the same topic, Grewal quotes a colleague, Maf Vosburgh, saying that their “new look” started with an idea to match hardware with software. Vosburgh says the idea was that if you had a Bondi blue iMac, then IE 5 would use that same color.

“So did Steve see our Summer 1999 New Look demo and tell his team to create Aqua?” says Vosburgh. “Who knows. Our stuff was in any case inspired by Apple’s hardware designs, so I can’t feel too bad about it.”

While Vosburgh says that Jobs was enthusiastic about Microsoft’s design, Grewal tells a slightly different story about what may have been a later demonstration.

“Since no one outside Apple was supposed to know about Aqua at the time, [Jobs] couldn’t say anything to us about the resemblance,” he says. “[And instead] he directed his ire at another new feature in MacIE 5 called Media Toolbar. This feature provided support for playing back MP3’s on websites.”

Media Toolbar was significant because it leveraged SoundJamp MP, the same software that Apple was in the process of acquiring to create iTunes.

“Jobs insisted we cut this feature claiming it undermined QuickTime,” continues Grewal. “Some time after the launch of MacIE 5, Apple acquired SoundJam and its development team. It was released by Apple under the name iTunes. We cut the feature and deeply regretted it.”

For that January 5, 2000 announcement, Internet Explorer 5 for Mac would be included in Steve Jobs’s keynote instead of getting a regular demo from a Microsoft executive.

“It was quite an unusual request. Talking points were agreed, but much to our dismay Jobs didn’t mention a single one,” says Grewal.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbO4lW-6_8E&w=560&h=315]

Instead, Jobs “implied” that the overall look of the browser was a result of it using Apple’s standards.

“But other than the scroll bars and window controls, the rest was generated by the UI code in the app and looked identical in the Mac OS 9 version,” says Grewal. “From the horizontal pin-stripped background of the toolbars, to the 24-bit semi translucent buttons and Gaussian-blurred menu backgrounds, none of it was part of Apple’s Aqua UI elements in the Carbon toolbox… yet to the casual observer they were almost indistinguishable.”

Despite Jobs ignoring the agreed points, and despite later regrets about cutting the Media Toolbar, Grewel says that he and the team were proud of the app.

“The response to MacIE 5 at Macworld and by the press was better than we had hoped, probably helped by the fact that it looked great and very similar to some of Apple’s own apps running under the yet-to-be-released Mac OS X,” he says. “We were all proud of the work we had done, the critical acclaim, and the enthusiasm of Mac users who had traditionally frowned upon Microsoft’s past efforts to build Mac software.”

Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 for Macintosh was released on March 27, 2000. Its final version was released in 2003.

Shortly afterwards, Jimmy Grewal left Microsoft. Writing in 2005 about his experiences with Internet Explorer he said Apple “was a pain in the ass sometimes.”

“For a company with such great PR, they really were very unprofessional and treated developers poorly. I know that the OS X transition was tough, but there are so many stories I could tell of stupidity at Apple and policies which made no sense,” he wrote.

“There were times during the last two years of working at Microsoft that I really hated Apple’s management,” he continued, “which was very difficult for me being such a loyal fan of their products and having so many friends who worked there.”

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After two months, Apple TV+ lacks a breakout hit

As Apple’s largest ever new service launch, Apple TV+ has brought us a strong stable of good shows. It just hasn’t had that all-important breakout hit yet —but that could be about to change.

Apple TV+ being promoted at an Apple Store

Apple TV+ being promoted at an Apple Store

You can’t say that Apple TV+ started quietly. Except that after Apple spent most of the year hyping it up, the service ultimately launched with just a few shows —and they haven’t been gigantic successes.

That’s not to say that the shows are poor, or that they haven’t been recognized by the likes of the Golden Globes or the Screen Actors Guild.

Out of the whole slate of series that Apple TV+ has rolled out in its first two months, though, none of them have yet become breakout hits. None of them have crossed that line into being talked about in mainstream media.

Dickinson

Dickinson

This is because, in most ways, it’s one thing to have a good series like “Dickinson.” It’s another to have one that is watched by a lot of people. And it’s yet another to have a show that breaks out into being part of the culture. In other words, there is no Baby Yoda on Apple TV+ yet.

Those breakout hits did happen more often when there were just ABC, CBS and NBC to watch. And it’s incredibly rare now that we instead have hundreds of places to see TV.

Only, if you can’t manufacture a cultural icon, and if you can only try to persuade enough people to watch your show, both of these things do depend on the series being good. And here, Apple is doing well.

Apple TV+ has plenty of good series

Compare it to any broadcast network’s September season, ever, and it’s actually quite remarkable how consistently good Apple TV+ series are. The whole reason we all got so used to mid-season replacements every January was that so many September launches would fail.

The definition of a failure on network TV, though, is and always was entirely in the viewing figures, not at all in the quality of the series. Very good shows died on the air before they found their audience. It could be such a fast and ruthless process that producer Alan Spencer, creator of ABC’s “Sledge Hammer!,” once joked that his show was cancelled during its first ad break.

Now if the sheer volume of choices mean it’s harder to find an audience, Apple is not so frantically chasing ratings, it is not trying to win its hour slot against its rivals.

The Morning Show

The Morning Show

Apple does know precisely how many people watch any given show, but it isn’t then trying to deliver that audience to advertisers. No one sets out to make a poor series, but if Apple TV+ has a dud, it does not have the same urgent reason to pull it after a couple of episodes and burn off the rest on late nights in the summer.

The odd poor series sitting in Apple TV+’s library isn’t going to cause a problem. A lot of poor series would. If all you ever saw when you turned on Apple TV+ was dud after dud, each bad show would be cumulatively damaging.

Whereas it only takes a single great show to make a service a success.

Previously on TV

We forget this now, but “House of Cards” was not just a very good Netflix series, it was an advertisement for the service. The success of that single show, the amount of buzz it created, lifted the whole of Netflix and helped get it noticed.

To a lesser degree, “Transparent” did the same for Amazon Prime.

This uplift from a single show is not limited to streaming services, either. HBO has been around since the early 1970s, but the reason you’ve heard of it is “The Larry Sanders Show” in the 1990s. You may not have seen that series, perhaps you don’t even know the name now, but what it did back then was ignite the cable service.

“The Larry Sanders Show” attracted viewers to the service, and the presence of viewers meant that HBO was then also attracting talent. Producers would already have known that HBO supported more interesting fare than network TV, and now they could see that there was an audience.

Apple has attracted talented creatives right from the start. You can be certain that Oprah’s phrase of “a billion pockets y’all,” or something similar, was said by Apple at every first meeting with every producer.

And you can be certain that every producer was already conscious of how much money Apple has.

No guarantees

The money, the audience, and the lack of adverts interrupting shows, all mean that the Apple TV+ service launched with very good people doing their best to make very good television.

It does not follow automatically that they succeed, but you don’t get a hit without trying.

See

See

Right now, Apple TV+ has the likes of “For All Mankind,” “Dickinson,” and “Snoopy in Space” that are well-received. It’s got “See,” which has had perhaps the weakest reviews of them all so far, and it has “The Morning Show.”

That series is the closest Apple TV+ has to a hit, and it’s the only one to be nominated for any awards so far.

Everyone wants a hit

“The Morning Show” is not a breakout hit, though. It is getting mentioned on other TV talk shows, it is getting some news value from its awards and reviews. It’s just not yet making such a noise that “Entertainment Tonight” is desperate to feature exclusive news from the set.

For the moment, though, two months into the service, Apple TV+ feels like HBO in its early days. It has a reputation for high quality, but it hasn’t had its Larry Sanders or Baby Yoda moment.

Let’s not downplay that point about quality, though. Making television is unlike anything Apple has ever done before.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8TsCQmngFk&w=560&h=315]

Since November 1, it’s brought us ten series across drama, comedy, children’s and Oprah’s Book Club. Assuming that Oprah Winfrey gets renewed, as her series surely must, then half of that slate is already coming back for a second run.

You can’t entirely trust that a show getting a second series got it through being a success. It can just be that the original deal was for more than one run.

Nonetheless, quantitatively it’s the sole metric we currently have or are even likely to get unless Apple decides to reveal its ratings.

Qualitatively, more visibly, and actually more surprisingly, none of the series so far have been complete duds.

And that’s what is going to get Apple success in television. Its shows are lacking buzz so far, but they’re not lacking in quality and we are already seeing how that has changed things.

AppleInsider sources in television long ago told us that Apple had been intent on signing exclusive deals with TV creators and, at launch, it had singularly failed to do that. Now, though, having seen how Apple TV+ works, and knowing from other creatives what is involved, it’s changing.

In late December, Apple signed comedy writer and star Sharon Horgan to a first-look deal. And around the same time, filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron similarly signed a multi-year movie deal with Apple.

Neither is as well known on screens as, say, the Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston partnership that produced “The Morning Show.”

But the shows and films they make are extraordinarily good, to the extent that both of these deals are true coups for Apple.

Apple TV+ just needs one great hit to get those billion people reaching into their pockets, and that first hit is going to come from attracting more and more talent to the service.

Keep up with AppleInsider by downloading the AppleInsider app for iOS, and follow us on YouTube, Twitter @appleinsider and Facebook for live, late-breaking coverage. You can also check out our official Instagram account for exclusive photos.

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Apple to hold annual shareholders meeting on Feb. 26

Apple is scheduled to hold its annual shareholders meeting in February at Apple Park’s Steve Jobs Theater, where stock holders will cast votes on measures ranging from the election of the company’s board of executives to three shareholder proposals.

Steve Jobs Theater

The meeting is slated to take place on Feb. 26 at 9 a.m. Pacific, according to a proxy statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday. Shareholders of record, or those who owned Apple stock at the close of business on Jan. 2, 2020, are invited to participate in person, but anyone with stake in the company can vote online through proxyvote.com.

For 2020, the meeting will cover a total of six proposals involving the election of directors, ratification of Ernst and Young as the independent registered public accounting firm and approval of executive compensation. Three shareholder proposals covering proxy access, sustainability and executive compensation, and policies of freedom of expression are also up for vote.

Apple presents board nominees James Bell, Tim Cook, Al Gore, Andrea Jung, Art Levinson, Ron Sugar and Sue Wagner for consideration. Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, resigned from the company’s board last September, prior to the debut of the Apple TV+ and Disney+ streaming services. A longtime director at Apple, Iger later said the tech giant’s interest in entering the entertainment industry put the companies on “conflicting rather than converging” paths.

During 2019, CEO Cook once again netted the lowest payout amongst fellow C-suite executives at $11.5 million, including a $3 million base salary. Other executives, including CFO Luca Maestri, General Counsel Kate Adams, SVP of Retail and People Deidre O’Brien, COO Jeff Williams, and former retail chief Angela Ahrendts, reaped between $19 million and $25 million in salary, stock grants and incentives.

That said, Cook raked in $113.5 million in vested stock units and stands to gain hundreds of millions of dollars should Apple continue to perform at expectations, as he controls 1.26 million unvested stock units worth some $275.7 million, as well as 560,000 equity incentive plan awards worth $122.5 million.

Three shareholder proposals are on the docket for 2020, including yet another proxy access amendment that seeks a second shareholder-approved nominee to the board. Apple’s current proxy access regulations limit access to 20 percent of immediately serving directors rounded down to the nearest whole number, which comes out to one director. The proposal would change that language to reflect a 20 percent figure “or 2, whichever is greater.”

Apple has received proxy access proposals six years running and in each case recommended shareholders vote against the proposition on the basis that the existing method of proxy access has been deemed effective.

Proposal 5 requests the Board Compensation Committee to prepare a report “assessing the feasibility of integrating sustainability metrics into performance measures, performance goals or vesting conditions that may apply to senior executives under the Company’s compensation incentive plans.” While Apple touts efforts in the areas of environmental sustainability and human rights, directly tying specific metrics to executive compensation could “reduce reputational, legal and regulatory risks and improve long-term performance,” the proposal reads.

Apple recommends a vote against Proposal 5, noting existing programs like the yearly Supplier Responsibility Progress Report, Environmental Responsibility Report and Supplier Code of Conduct are already in place. Further, integrating the requested metrics into executive compensation would be redundant as they are already built in as core corporate values, the company says.

“An effective approach to “sustainability,” as that term is defined by the proponent, requires more than simply tying executive compensation to the achievement of environmental, social, and governance goals,” Apple says. “That is why, as a company, we already incorporate the Apple Values into our business strategy.”

Finally, Proposal 6 seeks a report on Apple’s policies on freedom of expression and access to information, “including whether it has publicly committed to respect freedom of expression as a human right.” The company’s dealings in China are specifically mentioned, with proponents noting Apple’s mass removal of VPN apps from the App Store in 2017, a takedown of at least 634 so-called “illegal” apps in 2018 and the ejection of The New York Times app in 2017. In each case, Apple acted at the behest of the Chinese government, a regime known to stifle free speech.

The company recommends voting against Proposal 6, saying it adheres to the laws and regulations of countries in which it operates.

“In these instances, we prioritize engagement, advocating for the outcome we believe is in the best interests of our users. And, while we may disagree with certain decisions at times, we do not believe it would be in the best interests of our users to simply abandon markets, which would leave consumers with fewer choices and fewer privacy protections,” Apple says. “We believe engaging and participating in markets enables us to advocate for policies and practices that are consistent with Apple’s values.”

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Tim Cook donates $2M to unnamed charity

 

By Mikey Campbell
Thursday, January 02, 2020, 04:11 pm PT (07:11 pm ET)

Apple CEO Tim Cook last week donated 6,880 in personally owned company stock to an as-yet-unidentified charity, an amount worth about $2 million as of the trading date.

Tim Cook

According to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Thursday, Cook conducted the transaction on Dec. 27, when Apple shares were priced at $289.80. No shares were sold and a reporting price was not applied to the transfer, meaning the exact sum Cook donated will likely remain unknown.

Executives of publicly traded companies are not required to reveal the destination of charitable donations, but Cook has in the past made donations to the Human Rights Campaign’s Project One America, a gay rights initiative. The Apple chief in 2014 donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Pennsylvania’s Steel Valley School District, a gift that funded the purchase of iPads for students and teachers.

Cook routinely participates in philanthropic activities like auctioning off one-on-one meet-and-greets through CharityBuzz. In 2014, for example, a lunch with Cook at Apple’s headquarters sold for $330,000. Proceeds of the online sales typically go to the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights.

Like other tech executives — albeit not a multi-billionaire — Cook has promised to give a bulk of his money away to charity and in 2015 said he plans to take a “systematic approach” to philanthropy.

In addition to today’s reported donation, Cook made similar gifts to unspecified organizations over the past few years. He donated 50,000 Apple shares to an unidentified third party in 2015, 23,215 shares in 2018 and 23,700 shares in 2019.

Following last week’s trade, Cook controls 847,969 shares of beneficially owned Apple stock that, as of today, is worth $256.5 million.

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December 2019 in review: Apple releases the long awaited new Mac Pro

The Mac Pro and the Pro Display XDR dominated December, but there was also possibly, just possibly, an end to the year-long issues with China.

Apple's Mac Pro at WWDC 2019

Apple’s Mac Pro at WWDC 2019

Buyers had barely got their hands on the new 16-inch MacBook Pro when suddenly it was December and all eyes were on how Apple was bringing out the Mac Pro. Yet before you could dismiss the MacBook Pro as last month’s news, some of those new buyers were finding fault with their machine. Overall the reviews and hands-on pieces that continued into December were overwhelmingly positive, but there was this one issue about sound.

If you were using certain applications such as Final Cut Pro X, Logic Pro X or just any app that played audio, you might hear a popping noise. It would appear immediately after you’ve stopped playing, but also cropped up for some people as they scrubbed through audio and video files.

Apple's new 16-inch MacBook Pro

Apple’s new 16-inch MacBook Pro

Apple confirmed that this was a software bug and that it was working on fixing it.

As AppleInsider pointed out, though, Apple has some history with this popping or sometimes clicking sound. We could trace back similar issues to even 2007, when Apple had to update the then-current OS X Tiger.

But come December 10, 2019, the superb new 16-inch MacBook Pro was eclipsed somewhat by the superb and costly new Mac Pro.

About that cost

The Mac Pro was the biggest Apple news all month, but it isn’t in any danger of eclipsing other products in the Mac line. It simply isn’t aimed at the majority of users. Surely no one was looking at their Mac mini and planning a tiny upgrade to the Mac Pro.

That’s not in any way to say that Apple was aiming at the wrong market, rather to explicitly say that it was aiming at a particular one. AppleInsider had already talked to potential buyers about their reasons. And as disparate as they all were, they were each desperate for the power that this machine was due to bring.

Then it’s not that anyone is going to casually drop the $5,999 base price for the Mac Pro, it’s that there are users for whom even the cost of the highest-spec model was financially worth it.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qza8iibuvPI&w=560&h=315]

We all went to Apple’s Build to Order page, got out PCalc on our iPhones, and totted up that you could spend around $53,000 on a Mac Pro. That was the maximum on launch day, and since then further storage options have been added.

In late-December, the most you can spend on a Mac Pro is $53,948, and there are still more graphics card options to come. Plus the regular base model is at some point going to be joined by one that’s built to be rack-mounted. That will start at $6,499 or a further $500.

Ultimately the price is easily going to crack $55,000 and still we’re going to say that’s worth it. Even if you then have to drop $5,999 for the Pro Display XDR and a grand more for the stand.

From the moment the base price and configuration were announced, there were people who wanted much higher specifications and a much, much, much lower price, please. More reasonably, there were people arguing that the equivalent Windows workstations were cheaper. But, they aren’t.

You could spec out an equivalent Windows PC —and we did —and you could examine the specifications of what we called the “fantastically fast” new Mac Pro.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3xiMpN3TKc&w=560&h=315]

Or you could ask buyers. The UK’s Lunar Animation studio, for instance, has had both the Mac Pro and a Pro Display XDR for the weeks when it was working on the film “Jumanji: The Next Level.”

Enthused by how the Mac Pro revolutionized their workflow compared to the iMac Pro machines they had previously been using, still the company zeroes in on the display as the true game-changer.

“It essentially meant that we now had a reference monitor in the studio,” continued the firm. “As a smaller studio without 30k to drop on a monitor, it’s allowed us to see exactly what the final deliverable looked like as it was intended to go to the client.”

That’s why this new Mac Pro isn’t overpriced.

Even if you can’t justify dropping the cash that would otherwise get you a high-spec Tesla Model 3 car, though, the work that Apple did on the Mac Pro is significant.

We might not see the new Afterburner card make its way into cheaper Macs, but you can be sure that lessons learned from keeping this machine cool will benefit us all.

The sheer incredible speed that it offers us now will also increase over time as hardware and software engineers exploit the features of the new Mac Pro.

A rack-mounted Mac Pro seen during testing

A rack-mounted Mac Pro seen during testing

Apple stuck to its word about making this machine the best Mac ever, and it stuck to its promise of making it modular.

It just didn’t entirely stick to the idea that every Mac Pro would be made in Texas.

If you’re in the US, then then the Mac Pro you order will be assembled at the plant in Texas. But if you’re outside the US, the machine you get is likely to have been assembled in China.

China again

Barely a minute has gone by all year without China being an issue for Apple. Right from January, we had Apple reporting falling profits there, and throughout the months since, the US and China have been in a trade dispute.

What we learned about Apple’s profits in China this month was that nobody knows what’s going on —except that the game continues.

It’s a different situation with trade tensions and tariffs, though. It’s premature to say that all of this was utterly and finally resolved in December, but it was at least eased.

A further round of increased tariffs that would have affected the iPhone, iPad and Mac were dropped in the middle of the month as the two nations struck a trade deal.

The Pro Display XDR

The Pro Display XDR

That didn’t stop Tim Cook being continually pressed on the topic. In December, he visited Japan and while there, was asked about the whole issue of why Apple products are made where they are.

“The glass on this iPhone is made by Corning in Kentucky,” he said to the Nikkei Asian Review. “Several of the semiconductors in the iPhone are made in the United States. There’s enormous manufacturing happening in the US, just not the assembly of the final product.”

“The way that we do manufacturing is we look at all countries and look to see what skills are resident in each country, and we pick the best,” he said.

Worldwide

Apple is truly a worldwide company in terms of manufacturing and the supply chain, but it’s also a global sales operation.

In December 2019, we learned that it’s Apple that dominates the entire planet-wide wearable technology market, specifically because of the Apple Watch and AirPods.

You already know that in almost five years since it was announced, the Apple Watch has become an overnight sensation. But this device, which never gets as much mention as the iPhone or now even as much as Apple TV+, is even bigger than you think.

According to industry analysts, the Apple Watch has eclipsed the iPod in terms of sales.

Apple is doomed

That’s still not as much as the iPhone continues to earn. It’s estimated that Apple earned some 66%, or two thirds, of the entire smartphone market’s profits in 2019.

Note that this figure is specifically profits, and it amounts to something in the order of $8 billion. It’s not the number of phones sold, as it’s easily arguable that assorted Android handsets outsell the iPhone.

However, for all the devices it may have sold, or at least shipped, Samsung reportedly only took 17% of the market’s profits. Significantly, that puts Samsung in second place. That’s how far ahead Apple is.

That was then, this is now

The Apple that is now headed into 2020 is a rather different company than the one it was a year ago. In this last year, we’ve had huge services launched —Apple Card, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade and Apple News+ —and we’ve seen a revamp of how the company even presents its news.

With all of these services in place, it’s going to be interesting to see if 2020 sees Apple returning to a more familiar pattern of events that are centered on hardware.

We’ll be crossing fingers that hardware updates will include a 13-inch MacBook Pro with that new keyboard. We’ll be counting on September 2020’s “iPhone 12” featuring 5G.

And we’ll brace ourselves for yet more global concerns that are far less technological and much more political. Such as Apple Maps, which should’ve rounded out 2019 in some triumph as the greater detailed updates now cover the entire US. But instead, it got embroiled in a debacle over the Crimea Peninsula, and specifically who that territory belongs to.

Politics, legal issues, and more episodes of “The Morning Show.” Apple never stops.

Keep up with AppleInsider by downloading the AppleInsider app for iOS, and follow us on YouTube, Twitter @appleinsider and Facebook for live, late-breaking coverage. You can also check out our official Instagram account for exclusive photos.

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Jimmy Iovine reveals what’s wrong with streaming music, talks Steve Jobs

Former Apple Music executive Jimmy Iovine says streaming services are all facing the same problems about differentiation, but notes it’s a great time to be an artist.

Jimmy Iovine launching Apple Music in 2015

Jimmy Iovine launching Apple Music in 2015

Around 14 months after leaving Apple, record producer and Apple Music co-creator Jimmy Iovine talked with The New York Times about the state of streaming music services. He says each faces the same difficulties and describes what he learned from Steve Jobs, Apple and Napster.

“It’s all a response to Napster. I saw how powerful that technology was, and I realized we had to switch gears. The record companies were not going to exist without tech,” he told NYT. “Why I got into the music business originally was to be associated with things that were cool. And I realized that the record business at that moment, the way it was responding to Napster, was not cool.”

Iovine says that 20 years ago, the record industry was “putting up a moat” and suing people to protect its interests.

“So I said, ‘Oh, I’m at the wrong party.’ And I met a bunch of people in tech. I met Steve Jobs and Eddy Cue from Apple. And I said, ‘Oh, this is where the party is. We need to incorporate this thinking into [my record company] Interscope.'”

Iovine also wanted to work on how his music was being listened to, and says that he learned a lot from how Dr Dre was concerned with “cheap, inefficient equipment.” When he decided to form Beats music, he then learned from Apple just how complex hardware is.

“Steve Jobs used to sit with me at this Greek restaurant and draw out what I needed to do to make hardware,” explains Iovine. “He’d say, ‘Here’s distribution, here’s manufacturing,’ and he’d be drawing on this paper with a Sharpie. And I’d go, ‘Oh, [expletive].'”

Iovine says that his going from being a record producer to co-founding Beats, and then joining Apple, was not a case of jumping ship from music to technology. But also that while he sees technology and music as part of the same thing, others do not.

“The two sides don’t speak the same language,” he says. “Content doesn’t know what technology is building. And engineers are just going by the way they see a problem. The streaming business has a problem on the horizon, and so does the music business. That doesn’t mean they can’t figure it out.”

The problem for streaming, he says, is in the profit margins and how music services cannot really differentiate themselves.

“It doesn’t scale,” says Iovine. “At Netflix, the more subscribers you have, the less your costs are. In streaming music, the costs follow you. And the streaming music services are utilities — they’re all the same. Look at what’s working in video. Disney has nothing but original stuff. Netflix has tons of original stuff. But the music streaming services are all the same, and that’s a problem.”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p8AsQhaVKI?start=5938&w=560&h=315]

He also sees a problem in how record companies no longer have a direct relationship with music consumers. But equally, this can be tremendous for musicians and performers.

“The artists now have something they’ve never had before, which is a massive, direct communication with their audience — from their house, their bed, their car, whatever,” he says. “And because of that, everybody wants them. Spotify wants them, Apple Music wants them, Coke wants them, Pepsi wants them.”

“So hail to the artists, because in the end they’re winning,” he continues. “It isn’t their problem to figure out how the streaming company and the record company are going to make more money. It’s the streaming company and the record company’s problem to figure out how to become more valuable to that artist.”

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August 2019: Apple Card arrives, Siri listeners, trade wars escalate

In August, 2019, the Apple Card was officially launched. At the same time, the company had to re-evaluate having people listen to Siri recordings, and the US/China trade tensions got complicated.

August 2019: FileMaker revives the old Claris name (left); Apple Card launches (center) and Siri is listening to you (right)

August 2019: FileMaker revives the old Claris name (left); Apple Card launches (center)l and Siri is listening to you (right)

Given that across the whole of 2019, Apple launched at least as many major hardware updates as ever, still this year feels like it’s when the company pivoted to services. By August, we had Apple News+ and we knew we were getting both Apple TV+ and Apple Arcade. But it was this month’s launch of the Apple Card that may end up being the most significant.

Apple Card

Around six months after it was first unveiled, and following series of internal testing, Apple Card finally opened to applications in August 2019.

Initially available only by invitation —which didn’t go flawlessly —Apple Card was formally opened to all eligible applicants on August 20.

It’s conceivable that Apple Card is the company’s fastest success. Shortly before its release, a survey reported that consumer interest was “remarkably high,” for instance.

Apple Card is finally here.

Apple Card is finally here.

It appeared that Goldman Sachs, the issuing bank, was expecting big things because it was putting its money where its mouth is. Reportedly it was spending $350 for every Apple Card signup, although, separately, it was suggested that it may also be accepting “subprime” applicants.

It’s a credit card, so you do need to know what you’re getting into with it, but there were two more signs of success.

First, Tim Cook was pressed into saying that yes, yes, okay, we’ll be bringing Apple Card to more countries, enough already. And, second, the earliest users were finding that the physical card shows wear.

They may just have repeatedly been taking it out of wallets and purses to show off, mind. Admit it —you’d do the same. It’s the credit card that clangs when you drop it on the table.

Speaking of clangers

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Note 10 but left something out. A headphone jack. After mercilessly mocking Apple for removing the jack, Samsung had done precisely the same.

But there was a difference. In the hope that nobody would notice, Samsung also removed something else —the company took down its anti-Apple video ad on the subject.

It just didn’t do it very well. Search YouTube for it, and it’s true, the US ad is gone. But the Portuguese Samsung account still has it, and it’s in English.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxuHJv1_big&w=560&h=315]

Meanwhile, at the Samsung Unpacked, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella talked up the partnership between the two companies. And Microsoft, semi-accidentally, released a new build of the Microsoft Edge browser for Mac.

It wasn’t accidental. It’s not as if Microsoft didn’t know it was doing it. Microsoft Edge uses the engine from Google Chrome and since that’s on Mac, so is Edge.

Whatever the reason we’ve got it, and whatever we can expect Microsoft to support in the future, this latest build introduced a key feature called Collections. It was still a beta and a little flaky, but it added facilities for researchers to gather their work.

Complicated

That Collections research feature is for managing information you collect online and if you wanted to test it on anything, the White House was busy giving you lots and lots of data to track and update and stay on top of.

For all the months in which the US and China have had their current trade dispute, it seemed as if August 2019 was the most complicated.

Starting right on August 1, President Trump threatened a 10% tariff on electronics, which was to begin a month later. He later suggested he was open to discussions with China, but in the meantime had dinner with Tim Cook to discuss it.

Did Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak ever imagine Apple having to lobby the government?

Did Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak ever imagine Apple having to lobby the government?

After that, the president praised Cook’s communication skills, and said that he’d made a good case for Apple being excused the tariffs.

We’ll never know the full details, but some time after Cook’s dinner, the White House did make some changes.

“Certain products are being removed from the tariff list based on health, safety, national security and other factors and will not face additional tariffs of 10 percent,” reported the United States Trade Representative in a statement on August 13.

However, by August 23, things were changing again.

“Our country has lost, stupidly, Trillions of Dollars with China over many years,” tweeted the President. “We don’t need China and, frankly, would be far better off without them. The vast amounts of money made and stolen by China from the United States, year after year, for decades, will and must STOP.”

Consequently, throughout August, Apple’s share value was, well, interesting to say the least, and the company was being studied to see what it could and would do. Apple was predicted to absorb any potential tariff prices increases rather than pass them on to the consumer, for instance.

Then Apple was seen to have many options to reduce the impact of any tariffs, including exploiting a perceived lowering of production costs on the iPhone.

For us

The direct upshot, for us, of all the political impact on Apple, could be that iPhones became more expensive. Yet that’s only an issue if you’re planning to buy one, and there was reason to suspect that 2019’s iPhones weren’t going to be all that great. Not when it’s 2020’s models that are going to get 5G.

Financial company Nomura Instinet figured would happen, with it saying the 2019 iPhones would fare poorly. It also, for thoroughness, said everyone else is wrong about the demand for 2020’s 5G iPhones.

Apparently just because you and we really want 5G, that doesn't mean anyone else does.

Apparently just because you and we really want 5G, that doesn’t mean anyone else does.

Apple itself didn’t appear to be expecting a barn-burner with the iPhone 11, reportedly sticking to predictions of selling about the same as last year.

Whatever the predicted sales volumes, though, Apple was now reportedly looking to include the word “Pro” in certain iPhone models. It’s just a name, but it caused a lot of fuss.

But while we’re on the subject of future iPhones, reports of the 2019 range’s demise did not stop any predictions about the next few years of the product. We saw solid reports that the notch could vanish, for instance, and that Touch ID could return in 2021.

Other hardware

It’s not just the iPhone that could get 5G, either. You wouldn’t be surprised to see it in a future iPad Pro, but sources were saying now that we may even get a 5G MacBook Pro in 2020.

The FAA was thinking about MacBook Pro machines this month too. It decided to prohibit the carrying of specific models on flights, the 15-inch ones from September 2015 to February 2017 that were the subject of Apple’s voluntary recall over battery issues.

Software

While we looked forward to what was coming next, both with new hardware and the forthcoming releases of iOS 13 and macOS Catalina, FileMaker Inc was also looking to the past. It looked so far back in its own timeline that it stopped being called FileMaker Inc. In a nod to Apple history —though possibly not a very thorough nod —the company rebranded itself as Claris.

And then it seemed that everybody, just everybody, was looking at Siri.

Amazon, Google and Apple’s voice assistants have long been recording our requests of them and getting human beings to listen later to see how it worked. Not everything is recorded, not everything is listened to, and all of it is anonymized, but people were getting to hear what Siri heard and sent for analysis.

In truth, maybe Apple could have shouted about this more, but it had always told us it would do this. Nonetheless, a self-styled whistleblower contacted the press about how Siri is listening to us.

This followed previous reports saying the same for Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.

But if they were all at it, at least Apple reacted the most promptly. It said it would suspend the program while investigating and we all thought yeah, sure, of course you will.

It did. Apple suspended that program and it investigated. It didn’t just open some investigation and wait for us to forget about it, either, it released its findings. Before the end of the month, Apple changed how it worked the program and what it would tell us about.

But speaking of telling us things, Apple rounded out the month by doing its usual cryptic message.

By Innovation Only

We knew that there would be new iPhones announced in September, we knew there might not be much to them, but we didn’t know the date. Until now.

Apple revealed that September 10 was the day the new phones would be announced —and it called this year’s event “By Innovation Only.”

Whether that was to tell naysayers that this year’s phones would be good, or it was to fool us into thinking they might be, we’d soon find out.

Keep up with AppleInsider by downloading the AppleInsider app for iOS, and follow us on YouTube, Twitter @appleinsider and Facebook for live, late-breaking coverage. You can also check out our official Instagram account for exclusive photos.

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June 2019 in review: The Mac Pro arrives at WWDC, and Jony Ive departs

In June, Apple revealed the Mac Pro and announced iPadOS at its annual WWDC, and then admitted that Chief Design Officer Jony Ive was leaving the company.

June 2019 featured WWDC (left, the departure of Jony Ive (center), and the reveal of the Mac Pro (right)

June 2019 featured WWDC (left, the departure of Jony Ive (center), and the reveal of the Mac Pro (right)

More than any other month in 2019, it’s hard to know where to start with June. We were expecting WWDC to offer up some surprises, and it was certainly one of the most successful WorldWide Developer Conferences that Apple has done. We just never saw that Jony Ive would choose now to exit stage left, pursued by a freelance contract to keep advising Apple.

In between the surprises of WWDC and Jony Ive, though, there was one related yet rather sad moment. This month, it was revealed that Cupertino’s Flint Center was to close forever.

We all know what happened in that building. It was in the Flint Center that Steve Jobs unveiled the original Mac to shareholders. That was ahead of the grand public unveiling a week later, but he was back at the Flint Center for the public launch of the iMac.

Steve Jobs unveils the iMac at the Flint Center

Steve Jobs unveils the iMac at the Flint Center

It was at the Flint Center that Tim Cook stood on stage in 2014 to announce the Apple Watch. And to gift us all a U2 album.

The Flint Center is going to be turned into student accommodation now.

WWDC 2019

AppleInsider took you to Apple Park and behind the scenes for the event

The event itself didn’t have surprises that came entirely out of left field. Just about everything was hinted at or leaked before, but the volume of detail on the day was impressive. There were revelations that seemed good at the event but are likely to be the ones we ultimately look back on as being huge.

As far as leaks go, easily the very last one to squeeze in before Tim Cook stepped out on stage was the news that we might get an iPadOS. We did.

Finally, that acre of space between every icon on the iPad screen is fixed —with the new iPadOS.

Finally, that acre of space between every icon on the iPad screen is fixed —with the new iPadOS.

“It’s become a truly distinct experience,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, said afterward. “It’s not an iPhone experience. It’s not a Mac experience. The name is a recognition of that.”

What Apple didn’t appear to recognize was just how much people would leap on one single facet of iPadOS. It’s only intended, so far, as an accessibility aid, but you can now connect a mouse or trackpad to your iPad.

Sidecar and macOS Catalina

The new macOS Catalina introduced Sidecar, the ability to use your iPad as a second display for your Mac, just as you’d been able to do for years with solutions from third-party developers.

We all had the same thought when Sidecar was revealed. “Sherlocked,” we said aloud. After the event, we talked with many developers who’d seen their apps gain a pretty massive new competitor in Apple’s macOS features.

A Mac (left) extends its screen onto an iPad (right) using Sidecar in macOS Catalina

A Mac (left) extends its screen onto an iPad (right) using Sidecar in macOS Catalina

Apple zoomed through the unveiling of macOS Catalina, packing in feature after feature that sometimes blurred the lines between its different OSes.

That included the way that macOS now followed iOS in having separate apps for Music, Podcasts, and TV. It was true, iTunes was gone —which sparked a lot of incendiary headlines making people think they were going to lose all the music they’d ever bought.

The truth was in here, though, with AppleInsider explaining what was actually happening and what would actually happen to your music.

While some users were off grumbling about what they thought was happening, Apple revealed update after update. CarPlay had its first-ever significant overhaul, for instance. “Sign in With Apple” got applause as the new equivalent to —but significantly safer and more user-friendly than —signing in with either Google or Facebook.

And then there was the continuing story of Project Catalyst. Introduced in 2018 as a multi-year process, 2019’s episode didn’t seem that groundbreaking. Apple’s Catalyst-based apps —Home, News and so on —were pretty much the same as they were last year, for instance.

Nonetheless, Craig Federighi talked up the project both during WWDC and afterward. He admitted to poor design decisions on Apple’s part for how Catalyst was received initially, but now it is a “no brainer” to use it to put iPad apps on the Mac.

Key to this, though, was a seemingly small announcement at WWDC. The whole week-long event is for developers, of course, but Apple does know the world is watching, so it tends to devote the opening keynote to telling that world what it wants them to hear. This is why you get product releases, why Apple talks up its features.

This time, though, Apple devoted a short spot in the keynote to something no user will ever be conscious of, and yet which every developer we spoke to afterward was most excited by.

SwiftUI is big.

SwiftUI is big.

SwiftUI lets developers create and test apps in the Swift language, taking away as much of the routine burden of development as possible so that they can concentrate on what makes their app unique.

“It just works,” said Federighi.

About iOS 13 and watchOS 6

During WWDC, iOS 13 sounded like the best thing since, well, iOS 12.

Apple mentioned how HomePod, really part of iOS at the moment, would even gain more music to listen to —over 100,000 live radio stations would be coming.

Where that would give our ears something to listen to, Apple Maps was set on helping our eyes. Alongside greater detail for maps that would be rolling out across the US this year and selected other countries in 2020, there was also Look Around.

Apple can call this what it likes. We just knew right away that it was Google Street View in all but name. Until we saw it in action, and now we know it is what Google’s feature should be. And, in all probability, it will be one day.

It's only when you see it live in your hands that you really appreciate how good Look Around is in Apple Maps

It’s only when you see it live in your hands that you really appreciate how good Look Around is in Apple Maps

We also knew right away, though, that this was a way to demolish your battery life. Except Apple also introduced smart battery optimization in iOS 13 to prevent battery ageing.

There was also a lot new in the watchOS 6 release, too. Alongside smaller features such as new watch faces, an updated calculator, audiobooks, and voice memos, there was also the App Store. As of watchOS 6, you can buy apps directly on the Apple Watch.

Right now, that isn’t quite the giant deal that it was when the App Store first came to iOS. But, the easier Apple makes it to sell your apps to Watch users, surely the more apps will come.

There was much more to say about Apple’s various OSes —including HomeKit getting the ability to store security camera video.

All through the iOS and iPadOS details, such as the new features for Apple Pencil, though, the emphasis was on how this helps pro users. But if you’re talking pro, you’re talking about the biggest hardware release Apple had done on stage all year.

Mac Pro is here, or very nearly

Tim Cook and head of hardware John Ternus showed us the new Mac Pro in detail. There was still much we wouldn’t know until its actual release, such as any pricing beyond the base cost, but there was a lot to say at WWDC.

The new 2019 Mac Pro would come with up to 28 cores and be able to handle up to 1.5TB of RAM. It was also as modular as Apple had previously hinted, and it was to be launched alongside the promised Pro Display XDR.

Tim Cook looking like he's wondering if anyone will buy the new Mac Pro. They will.

Tim Cook looking like he’s wondering if anyone will buy the new Mac Pro. They will.

You could also see for yourself. Even if you haven’t got the budget for the base $5,999 Mac Pro or $4,999 Pro Display XDR —and $999 for the stand —you could see how they would look on your desk. Visit the Apple site on an iOS device and you could use AR to see how they looked at life-size and from any angle.

It might be the closest most of us get to owning a Mac Pro, but Apple isn’t exactly aiming this at Mac mini users. Apple was aiming high, and right from the moment of this announcement, there was enough detail about the Mac Pro that AppleInsider was able to report on who would be buying it.

And then there was Jony Ive

At the end of June, we learned of the end of Jony Ive’s era at Apple.

His exit date wasn’t specified beyond being later in 2019, but Apple was also keen to create a blur around the word “leaving.” Ive would reportedly continue work with Apple in some form from his new company, LoveFrom.

“While I will not be an [Apple] employee, I will still be very involved — I hope for many, many years to come,” Ive said in an interview. “This just seems like a natural and gentle time to make this change.”

Jony Ive (left) with Steve Jobs

Jony Ive (left) with Steve Jobs

“After nearly 30 years and countless projects, I am most proud of the lasting work we have done to create a design team, process and culture at Apple that is without peer. Today it is stronger, more vibrant and more talented than at any point in Apple’s history,” Ive continued.

“The team will certainly thrive under the excellent leadership of Evans, Alan and Jeff, who have been among my closest collaborators. I have the utmost confidence in my designer colleagues at Apple, who remain my closest friends, and I look forward to working with them for many years to come.”

It may have been a “natural and gentle time” to leave, but few outside Apple saw it coming. And the moment Ive’s departure was announced, there were two immediate and obvious reactions.

First, there was the inevitable internal email from Tim Cook praising Ive, and then there was the external furor over how this means Apple is doomed.

Not to knock Ive and his astonishing work, but of course Apple isn’t finished.

What was perhaps less predictable was that as soon as Ive’s departure was revealed, we started to get more details of his work at Apple —including some previously secret snippets.

So we finally learned that yes, Apple had actually made a TV set. Not the Apple TV set-top box, not the Apple TV+ service —which did of course get a mention or three at WWDC —but an actual television set.

We’ll never see it on sale. Whatever reasons stopped Apple releasing it before, Ive’s new firm is concentrating on health and wearable technology instead.

That would seem to fit with where Apple is heading these days —and it may well be time the company moves away from hardware releases given all the troubles it’s had with that this month.

Tariffs and China

June’s episode in the up and down story of Apple in China had a good part where we learned that number of users in the country has been increasing. According to Morgan Stanley, China had its fifth consecutive month of year-over-year user growth.

Then Tim Cook told CBS that Apple had not yet been affected by the US/China trade tensions. However, he also made it clear that the disputes and, in particular, tariffs would hit America.

“The truth is, the iPhone is made everywhere. It’s made everywhere,” he said. “And so — a tariff on the iPhone would hurt all of those countries, but the one that would be hurt the most is this one.”

Tim Cook visited the White House to lobby about tariffs.

Tim Cook visited the White House to lobby about tariffs.

Cook consequently met with President Trump to discuss the issues. He revealed little then of the meeting, but a week later Apple formally requested that the US not impose tariffs on its imported products.

“Apple’s products are used by American families, students, businesses, government agencies, schools, and hospitals,” Apple’s letter to the administration reads, “to communicate, teach, improve health outcomes, enhance creativity and enterprise.”

“The Chinese producers we compete with in global markets do not have a significant presence in the US market, and so would not be impacted by US tariffs. Neither would our other major non-US competitors,” continued. “A US tariff would, therefore, tilt the playing field in favor of our global competitors.”

Keep up with AppleInsider by downloading the AppleInsider app for iOS, and follow us on YouTube, Twitter @appleinsider and Facebook for live, late-breaking coverage. You can also check out our official Instagram account for exclusive photos.

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Apple videos encourages iPhone 11 users to make ‘slofies’

 

By Malcolm Owen
Saturday, December 28, 2019, 01:36 pm PT (04:36 pm ET)

Apple is continuing to highlight the high-speed capabilities of the iPhone 11’s front-facing camera, by releasing four videos showing how a ‘slofie’ could be taken on the smartphone with a wide variety of different results on the same theme.

Introduced at the launch of the iPhone 11, a “Slofie” is the same as a self-portrait “selfie,” except that instead of bring a single shot, it’s actually a slo-mo video of the subject. Combining “slow” and “selfie” in a portmanteau, it takes advantage of updates to the front-facing camera, which allows it to record at 4K resolution at up to 60fps, and in slo-mo at up to 120fps.

The four videos published to the official YouTube account on Saturday show how the concept can be explored in different ways, while also pointing out how making the videos can be funny. The first has a man with loose skin move his face from side to side, with the slofie capturing the wobbling jowls.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpOZ9oxNwMY&w=560&h=315]

The second has a man dancing under a sprinkler, simultaneously advertising the iPhone 11’s water resistance.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EE68bvpaIM&w=560&h=315]

A third is a group slofie where three girls move around a smoke-filled and neon-colored room, which turns out to be a walk-in freezer at a store.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEc3aGjN228&w=560&h=315]

The fourth is not new, as it is the same video Apple itself played to the audience at the launch of the iPhone 11. In it, a girl in front of a foil backdrop has air from a hairdryer blasted at her face as she moves around.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r6XE7ODVDg&w=560&h=315]