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Good Kids’ Bikes

From Episode 232 of ATP. I wish John Siracusa had brought up his issues with kids’ bikes when he first put it in the show notes because I've done the research and I've found good kids’ bikes! Maybe my research can help Marco and Casey.

TL;DR:

When my kid turned 3 we got him this.

A few months before he turned 5 we got him this.

After the balance bike phase (age 2-3 in my kid’s case) you’re going to want to start with a 16" bike (age 3-4). Most manufacturers, from the Walmart/Targets to known name brands, make incredibly heavy, steal crap bikes. This is what John found.

But my wife’s research found an English company (that now sells in the US) called Isla Bikes. (There are similar competitors now, but this is what we got.) They make light, aluminum bikes with good components in various kids’ sizes. The key thing with bikes for both adults and kids is weight. Most kids’ bikes are incredibly heavy — heavier than high end adult bikes. It is so much easier for a kid to ride (and learn) on a light bike.

Of course, for both adults and kids, “light” = “expensive.” But since John was frustrated that he couldn't find a good bike at any price, I thought I'd write in.

It might seem crazy to many people to spend this much on a kid's bike, but I justified it in two ways. One, my kids could actually ride this bike all over the place. We rode 25 blocks to and from school most days. We went on nice rides on the weekend. Those heavy Walmart bikes are good for riding around the driveway. Second, I have two kids, so it was passed down to the second and they should get a combined 4 years out of it.

When it came time for my son to get a bigger, 20” bike (before he turned 6), there were a few more options. Isla Bikes makes a few models, but Trek and Orbea have some good light mountain bikes.

Now, I found that the bike shops aren’t going to carry in stock the good light models. They will have the lowest price, terrible heavy model. But if the shop carries Trek or Orbea, they will order the good model for you. I called a shop that carried Trek and Orbea and they ordered and built both for us to try and we ended up getting the Orbea.

We felt it came with more for the money, and we thought it looked nice. The Trek Superfly 20 is also supposed to be good. It's perhaps the lightest, but some people say the cranks are a little long for the kids.

I think John mentioned he was against mountain bikes, but for this age and size (the 20") it made a lot of sense. I wanted him to have gears, because where we live (in West Harlem) there are just enough hills that the gears are really useful and he loves using them. And I wanted a dirt bike so we can go off road too. I think a real BMX bike is actually better when he's a little older.

[thepixelpeeps]

To Tommy Vietor,

I've become a huge fan of Pod Saves America and Pod Saves the World and really appreciate the insights from people with so much experience inside the White House. It feels like a reality check for how things should work in these crazy times.

I have to say that a portion of your Ben Rhodes discussion on Snowden failed to acknowledge many truths, and consisted of a narrative that in some ways just didn't confront reality. I really think it would be a valuable conversation to have with your audience.

Rhodes says it would be different if Snowden held a news conference in the US and faced the consequences. He says that Ellsberg stayed and faced his fate. This really makes me question Rhodes' motives. I know that Rhodes must know that Ellsberg himself has written and spoken many times about how Snowden would not be able to stay in the country and make his case as Ellsberg himself did. After being a fugitive from justice for 13 days while Ellsberg continued to distribute the Pentagon Papers to 17 newspapers, the last three days of which he was in defiance of an arrest order, he surrendered in Boston and “was released on personal recognizance bond”. For two years that he was under indictment, he “was free to speak to the media and at rallies and public lectures.” You and Rhodes must acknowledge that, as Ellsberg says, “There is no chance that experience could be reproduced today.” We can look at how others were treated in similar circumstances to see what fate awaited Snowden if he had surrendered to the US. Chelsea Manning was held in a 6x8 foot cell for 23 to 24 hours a day while awaiting trial. The Wen Ho Lee debacle, while not a leak case, was an espionage case, and also shows how how the government treats suspects in such cases, holding him in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day while severely restricting his communications, all before trial, and almost all of it completely in error.

Rhodes did not specifically mention the option of reporting concerns through proper channels, but I’ve heard President Obama say that in regards to Snowden. I have always wished a reporter would ask him about some of the following points, but perhaps it is something you could address. Most egregious in my view, since it shows malice and not just incompetence, is the treatment of previous NSA whistleblowers who did stay within proper channels to bring their concerns of illegality and abuse to superiors. Namely J. Kirk Wiebe, William Binney, and Ed Loomis. They previously did what President Obama suggested Snowden should do; they reported their knowledge of waste and systems that could make the US less safe to the NSA Inspector General, and ultimately to the Department of Defense Inspector General. The DOD IG “substantially affirmed” the complaint. And nothing was done. But when a story similar to the IG complaint leaked to the press, the FBI raided the three of them and others. It's been confirmed that they were not the source of the leaks. Yet their lives have been destroyed, their security clearances canceled, their ability to work within their field they are expert in ended. No charges were ever brought, nor were they exonerated, nor did they even get their property back. Just a hit job by the FBI destroying their lives. For doing exactly what President Obama says Snowdon should have done. This occurred during the Bush administration, but the one prosecution that came out of the whole case was of NSA Senior Executive Thomas Drake, during President Obama's administration. Another total debacle. And we know more recently that the NSA IG George Ellard was suspended and recommended for termination for retaliation against a whistleblower. The same IG who once said Snowden could have brought his concerns to him and they could have explained to Snowden how he was incorrect about the constitutionality of the programs (even though both Obama and Rhodes agree that important reforms were made after Snowden's revelations. Why did reforms have to be made if there was nothing wrong?) How can President Obama or Rhodes say with a straight face that someone with sincere issues with NSA programs should go through proper channels or hold a press conference in the US and face their fate?

Rhodes says in the podcast Snowden went to Russia through China, our biggest adversaries, therefore his motives of transparency are suspect. A technically true description of his movements, but Rhodes seems to be spinning this point and not being entirely straight with us. By China, he means Hong Kong –not entirely the same thing–, and Snowden claims he was trying to get to South America (where one of the reporters who published his info lived, so it's not hard to believe) and Rhodes doesn't mention that the US invalidated his passport, blocking his ability to get there. Rhodes says he doesn't believe Snowden's motives for transparency and says the facts are that he fled to China and Russia, but by not acknowledging the facts of how he ended up there, it makes it seem as if Rhodes is trying to manipulate the facts to convince us of his opinion.

All that being said, it might be entirely true that Snowden was actually an agent of Russia and is no whistleblower hero. I've seen some pretty compelling theories to that point. But if President Obama had cleaned up the NSA after the Drake, Wiebe, Binney, and Loomis revelations - fixing the NSA programs so that privacy protections were built back in, and exonerating the whistleblowers, then there would be no altruistic motives for Snowden to claim. President Obama didn't address privacy and constitutional issues with the NSA programs until after Snowden's revelations, and gives us no indication that the issues would have been addressed without the revelations. If Snowden was in fact working for Russia and trying to damage the US, it is the administration and the NSA that gave him the opportunity to claim transparency and privacy motivations. Because you can't deny that a sizable portion of US citizens were very disturbed by what the Snowden revelations revealed.

[thepixelpeeps]

Why Won't Apple Communicate Clearly?

Remember when Steve Jobs did this?:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FF-tKLISfPE

That is Steve Jobs answering a very insulting question about his decision to get rid of Hypercard -- an application and coding tool that had a passionate user base. So in that case, Apple publicly announced they were getting rid of Hypercard, and Steve Jobs publicly gave an extremely thoughtful and forthright answer to this guy as to why he was doing it.

Remember when Steve Jobs published this?:

Thoughts on Flash

That's Steve Jobs publicly stating that Apple wouldn’t be using Adobe's Flash technology on iOS and why.

In contrast, over the last few weeks and months Apple has sent backchannel, plausibly deniable communiques to individual tech reporters supposedly confirming that they are out of the stand-alone computer monitor business and the wifi router business. Then there is Apple's lack of updates to certain Mac lines for over two to three years with no comment of any kind.

Apple leaves any interpretation of those moves to bloggers and tech journalists. Is Apple getting out of the Pro computing business? Are they only going to focus on those product lines that bring in the most money? What will this do to the Apple Ecosystem and its Halo Effect?

There has been a lot of sturm and drang over the lack of Mac updates, the lack of “pro” features on the new MacBook Pro updates, and the exiting of some of these other businesses. We can all argue, pontificate and complain about each of these decisions, but ultimately, Apple is going to do what's best for Apple and that is their right. I may disagree strongly with their decisions, but it's not my company.

However, as a customer, I would insist that Apple is doing some real damage by not communicating what their intentions are with their product lines. If they are going to focus only on iPhones and general purpose Macs, then they should say that, publicly and clearly. Explain why this is the best thing for majority of their customers and for Apple. But tell us, so those that have other computing needs can plan accordingly.1

They should be able to publicly make a case for doing what they are doing, even if the choices they make will be difficult for some users, just as the decisions Steve Jobs made in the two examples above were difficult. But he faced them straight on, and left no doubt as to where the company stood. I think it’s high time Apple looked its customers straight in the eye and communicated clearly where it stands on its product lines. By all means make the case for why they don’t think it’s best for Apple to be selling wifi routers, backup devices, monitors, and low end and high end computers. But make the case.

As a personal example, I work for a TV show that was once all PC. Years ago, the editors convinced the Executive Producer to switch the office to Mac, after we switched our edit systems to one that runs on Mac. The edit systems run on MacPros. The office on Mac Minis. It's worked out really well. But these are two Mac lines that haven’t seen updates in over two and three years. Perhaps Apple has decided these products don’t make sense for them to make anymore. If so, we should switch to PC. But if they will be updating them, we should hold on and wait. (There is zero chance that our show will pay for iMacs, and there are zero options for other Macs that will run our editing system in our environment.) BUT WE DON’T KNOW IF APPLE WILL UPATE THOSE MACHINES OR NOT because they refuse to communicate their intentions. ↩︎

[thepixelpeeps]

Vesper is/was a very beautifully designed and well thought out note taking app from John Gruber, Brent Simmons, and Dave Wiskus that was recently shut down because it didn’t generate enough revenue for it’s developers.

The creators of the app and other developers have written and talked about the app’s demise which gave a lot of great perspectives about the App Store, pricing strategy and order of development, but for what it’s worth, here’s a user’s perspective:

I bought Vesper, but never used it because it didn’t sync to all my devices. That’s it. I couldn’t use an app where my notes were stuck on one device. Not since using other notes apps that sync everywhere.1

Price, subscription, or only having a Mac app at first would not have solved the problem of not having my notes on all my devices. And Gruber said as much when he admitted he cheated by running Vesper in Xcode on his Mac. He mentioned it as proof of how much he loved the program, but he didn’t acknowledge how important it was to be able to access his notes on his computer. For the rest of us that couldn’t do that, it just didn’t make Vesper usable.

It’s a shame, because they were so close. They already had the iOS version and a sync engine, and a Mac version was in development. As soon as that Mac version came out I would have switched to Vesper from Simplenote.

This of course might not have been enough to help their revenue problem. But they didn’t address this fundamental issue for users: how to get a product that syncs to all devices right out of the gate.

I assume it’s just not possible for a small team like Q branch to launch a product with sync and two platforms. Perhaps they were just too early. If they had been able to use iCloud syncing and subscription pricing – which are now available – perhaps they would have been able both to launch on two platforms with sync and have recurring revenue.

We users are used to having our notes sync to our computers since the days of manually syncing our Palm Pilots. ↩

[thepixelpeeps]

iOS Passwords

Why is there no Apple native solution for entering passwords into apps on iOS? Apple created iCloud Keychain to manage passwords, but the 'app' company built their password solution into their web browser. This does not help with entering login info into apps.

Not only do users have dozens of apps on their devices (most of which require a username and a password), but those apps do not retain login information indefinitely. I often have to re-enter login info, presumably when apps are updated.

WWDC 2016 has come and gone, and I saw no new features announced regarding passwords in iOS. Apple announced a universal login feature for the AppleTV for logging into your cable provider, but there was no such attention to their flagship operating system.

On his WWDC episode of The Talkshow John Gruber told a story to guests Phil Schiller and Craig Federighi about a WWDC session he had attended a few years ago:

Somebody asked the question of somebody who was on the engineering team in charge of security, gave a rant about how passwords are terrible, and people pick bad passwords because they're easy to remember, and passwords that are hard to remember, or hard to crack, or hard to guess, are unusable, or less usable. "Have you guys given any thought to what's next beyond passwords?"

And there was this pause, and the speaker...

[Gruber intimates looking down toward the mic.]

”Yes."

[laughter]

And it was like, well that's an interesting — that's a very interesting and truthful answer. And we've seen, I think, in the intervening years, some of the things that might have been circulating. Touch ID...

And Gruber goes on to praise the announcement of the new feature Auto-unlock. But that doesn't do anything for entering passwords in apps. If you are one of the, probably, very few people who use iCloud Keychain to create and store unique, hard to crack passwords, there is still no help from Apple to enter these passwords into apps on iOS. And that is precisely what is needed to get people to create and use good passwords.

Third parties like 1Password have tried to address this, and their solution works great, giving you access to the password you need right when you select the passwords field in an app. But it requires the maker of each and every app on the user’s device to include 1Password's solution in their app. Very few apps do. This problem needs a 1st party solution so it works on a system level, where every app has access to iCloud Keychain when the user wants to enter a password, just as any website does in Safari.

This issue is one of the main pain points in trying to use iOS devices, and unfortunately it will at the very least be more than another year before it is addressed.

[thepixelpeeps]

Netflix is Two Different Services

I wrote earlier about Netflix removing the play button from DVD entries in the DVD queue. A friend asked if this could be an attempt by Netflix to cut down on their bandwidth costs.

Quite the opposite, I think Netflix is all in on their streaming business and has been trying to kill off their DVD mailing business. Back in September of 2011 Netflix caused some controversy by announcing they were splitting the service into two different companies, one for streaming and one for DVD's. The reasoning was that they were trying to skate to where the puck was going, and since the future of media delivery was clearly going to be streaming and not sending physical disks in the mail, they were trying to get jumpstarted on that future. But apparently they way overshot. There was a fair amount of pushback and vitriol from customers, investors and analysts — Netlix lost 800,000 subscribers, and they supposedly rolled back the move.

But really they didn't. While Netflix wasn’t split into two separate companies as they had originally proposed, they did split the pricing and the website. Streaming used to be an add-on. If you rented over a certain number of DVD's at a time, streaming was included. But after the announcement, and even after the "rollback," they charged separately for streaming, and disks.1

Also, the website used to be totally integrated. When you looked up a movie, you would see what formats were available: DVD, Blu-ray, and if available, streaming. Netflix.com is now just for streaming. You cannot see any information about DVD/Blu-rays. If you look up a movie that is not available for streaming, it says, "there were no results for [movie]." It does not tell you that the movie exists as a DVD which you can add to your DVD queue. You must click on the "DVD" link at the top of the site to go to the DVD side of the website where you can search again. The iOS apps don't have that link, so there is no way to access DVD information whatsover.

Even the URL's are different for the two services. Netflix.com is the streaming site, and DVD.com or DVD.netlix.com is the disc site. There is nothing more than a link to each on the top of the page that switches you back and forth between the two.

So Netlix has essentially completed the separation they announced in 2011. The only difference is that a single username and password works for both accounts. But the pricing and the site are separate for each.

This would not be much of a problem for users if their streaming offerings were anything like their disc offerings. But it's not even comparable. Netflix has quite a large DVD/Blu-ray selection.2 The streaming selection doesn't even compare.3 So it would be great for users to keep it a hybrid service. It could differentiate them from other content creators like HBO and Amazon.

This is a shame for users, and I wonder if it’s the right strategy. Amazon keeps adding new services for the same Amazon Prime price, which always makes Prime seem worthwhile. You get a streaming music service, a streaming video service, etc., and you were paying for it anyway for free two day shipping. Netflix had the opportunity to do a similar thing, offering streaming as a bonus to their DVD business. ↩︎

It seems to me it's getting worse. It used to be the case that pretty much if it existed on disc, they had a copy, while now there is more and more that they don’t have. But it's still vastly larger than their streaming offering. It doesn't even compare. ↩︎

This is not their fault. Their streaming selection is not particularly different than any others. They are at the whims of the content providers, whereas with discs they can legally offer any disc that exists. ↩︎

[thepixelpeeps]

Netflix Removes the "Play" Button

About a month ago I noticed that Netflix had updated the DVD side of their website. The DVD queue looks a bit cleaner and there is more space for each row for each movie. But there used to be a “play” button next to each movie if it was available for streaming on Netflix. It was nice to see, both so you could avoid sending yourself a disc that could be streamed instead, and so you could easily find and instantly stream a movie from your queue. But now those buttons are gone. You have to click on each disc in your queue to look at the available formats to see if it is available for streaming.

Why would one still want to get discs from Netflix? Doesn’t everyone do streaming only? Two reasons. The movie selection for discs is far, far larger than for streaming. It doesn’t really compare at all. There is just a massive selection of movies on discs (though that selection seems to be getting slimmer each year.) Also, for any movie that I really care about, I would rather get it on Blu-Ray than streaming in HD. The compression on Blu-Ray is still the best quality easily available to consumers. U.S. Mail, discs, and Blu-Ray players certainly seem to be headed for some sort of extinction event, and streaming is the future. But if you really like movies, and if you have a really nice projector with a big 110 inch screen, Blu-Ray is totally worth it.

[thepixelpeeps]

One Hope For The Apple Watch

I’ve been using the Apple Watch Sport edition since it came out. I like it a lot and wear it most every day.

After using it for about 10 months, my primary knock against it is the fact that the watch face is not permanently displayed. John Gruber (@Gruber) mentioned this way back when the watch was released in his original review. Clearly the reason for this is because of battery life; displaying anything permanently on the LCD screen would quickly drain the battery. But because of this, the Apple Watch is not as good as a traditional watch at it’s primary function: telling the time. The “raise to lift” function works very well for me. But there are many times throughout the day when raising your wrist is not convenient, yet you want to be able to see the time – or any one of the complications – at a glance. If you are holding a drink for example. Or pushing a stroller with one hand while holding something in the other. Or typing on a keyboard. In each of these type of cases you are able to see the blank face of the watch, but it is not displaying anything. This adds up over the course of the day to be mildly irritating.

I also think the watch looks much better when the watch face is being displayed. When it is not, it looks cheaper, like a consumer electronics product – a regular old LCD screen strapped to the wrist. Whenever I see the watch on someone else’s wrist and there is nothing being displayed, I can’t help but think it looks like a little iPhone strapped on there. But if it happens to be on and displaying one of the faces, it looks much more attractive. The physical design of the watch and the software come together to produce quite a nice looking object.

It might be impossible at this point to be able to display anything on the face of the watch all day, but until they are able to eek out enough battery power to allow it, or change the display technology to one that uses much less power, the Apple Watch will alway have this little pain point every time you use it. I fear that allowing the watch to display the time all day is not even on Apple’s agenda – that they will instead plow any battery gains into making the watch thinner. But I really feel an always on display should be the primary goal at this point for the Apple Watch. To me it is really the one thing that keeps it from being a complete win and a joy to use.

[thepixelpeeps]

The Importance Of Costume In Character Introduction

In Scriptnotes episode 237 John August (@johnaugust) and Craig Mazin (@clmazin) discuss the importance of hair, makeup and wardrobe in character introduction and description. They don’t give much in the way of concrete examples, so here’s one that comes to mind from the DVD extras of Shakespeare in Love. Geoffrey Rush is interviewed and says that costume designer Sandy Powell told him, “I think your character is a one-outfit-kind-of-guy.” She issued him his costume and that’s what his character wore throughout the whole movie. Rush thought this was wonderful and credits the insight with helping him get a more perfect take on his character.

I’m sure the script by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard was excellent and helped Powell come up with this insight, but this could have easily been done by the screenwriters. Rush’s character could have been introduced as a “one outfit kind of guy,” and the reader (and costume department) would have been privy to this notion from the start. Of course, it is impossible for one person to have every idea, and this just proves how collaborative a medium film is, and how important all the departments are to the finished film.

[thepixelpeeps]

The Woeful Story of My First Few Days With iPad Pro

I purchased an iPad Pro, Apple Pencil and smart keyboard cover while on vacation in Los Angeles. I restored my iPad Pro from an iCloud backup from my iPad Air and was off to the races. I used it a bunch on my trip and on the plane home across the country. I was really loving it; more than I thought I might. Once home, I plugged it in for its first full charge overnight and then took it with me on the train to work. It wouldn't turn on. This is a known bug. You have to reboot by holding the power and the home button. But in my case this began an incredible (to me) series of failures. After a restart, iOS devises with fingerprint recognition require the user to enter their passcode. I entered it and it failed. I tried it a few more times and it failed each time. I don't know how this is possible, but I was locked out. The only option if you are locked out of an iOS device is to wipe it clean and start over. This shouldn't be too big a deal if you have iCloud backups turned on (I do). So, using a Mac and iTunes I first wiped the iPad Pro clean and then restored from iCloud backup. Which failed. Many times. It appears that the backup is corrupted. I would have to restore from a previous iPad Air iCloud backup. So if you are keeping count that is a crash, a bug that wipes or changes your passcode, and a failed iCloud backup. Not only did this take most of a day to deal with, but since I had to restore from an earlier iCloud backup, this is where I lost a fair amount of work I'd done since setting up the new iPad Pro. In truth, any app with a backend service should in theory have it's data in tact, even if the data was created after the point of the last iCloud backup. So, for instance, if you write in an app that stores it's files in iCloud drive or in Dropbox, then even if you don't have an iCloud backup, the files should come down from iCloud drive or Dropbox. But some apps I use don't have any back end service, and others failed to restore the data anyway. I spent most of my time on the iPad Pro writing in Day One, a journaling app, and drawing in 3 apps: Paper by 53, Adobe Sketch, and Procreate. Day One had a glitch where after I originally restored from iCloud backup, it said I was logged into Dropbox in the settings, but it turns out it wasn't actually syncing to Dropbox. I lost everything I wrote from the time of set up to the time I had to clear the iPad. It seems that you have to unlink from Dropbox and then link it again. The drawing app Procreate has no backend sync component, so I lost everything I did in that app after first setting up the iPad Pro. Paper by 53 has it's own sync engine, but the work I did during this period seemed to be lost. I'm not sure what happened, perhaps I was not logged into their backend. 1Password is another app I realized later was not syncing even though it said it was set up with Dropbox. Incredibly frustrating, especially when I try to do everything the right way. Long alphanumeric passcode, with Touch ID turned on. iCloud backup on. Plug the iPad in to power and make sure it's on wifi at night. The only thing that could have saved me is if I had also made a backup in iTunes. But the whole point of iCloud backup is that you don't have to remember to do that regularly. So, be warned: After setting up a new iOS device, check to make sure all your apps are properly syncing to their back end services.

[thepixelpeeps]

Kindle Book with Audio - a Near Total Delight

I bought the Kindle version of The Martian for $7.99 (I loved the book) and when I got the confirmation page it asked if I wanted to add the audio book for $2.99. My thought process:

Sometimes I’ve though about listening to an audiobook. But I don’t want to listen to the whole book. Mostly I’d like to read the book, but there are times it would be nice to be able to listen.

If I listened sometimes, I wish it could somehow keep the Kindle book in sync. And I wish reading the kindle book could somehow keep in sync with the audio book. Otherwise it would be too hard to find your place in one or the other.

This is clearly too much to ask. I was sure they were just offering the audiobook as a separate entity.

I decided to give the audio book a shot. I noticed it was from Audible, so I figured I’d have to get the Audible app and listen to it there. Maybe I’d listen for awhile in the car, and then try to find the spot in the Kindle.

To my total surprise, they were offering everything I had imagined and more. The audiobook downloaded right into the Kindle book in the Kindle app. The reading and listening experience was totally integrated. There was an audio button in the lower left hand corner of the book. You tap it and the audio plays and audio controls appear so you can play/stop, jump forward/back, change speed. You can flip pages of the book and the audio will jump to the page you turn to. If you just let the audio play, the pages will sync to that spot. So at anytime you can switch to reading or audio and your place is in perfect sync. Amazing. I listened to the book on walks or while commuting, and picked up reading whenever I was home and able to read.

Why isn’t this feature marketed? I see adds for Audible audiobooks all the time. They should totally tout this feature. This is a real selling feature. It takes away the only reason that prevented me from ever getting an audiobook. I have no idea how many books this feature exists for. Maybe they are few and far between. But if you have a chance to try it, I whole heartedly recommend it.

[thepixelpeeps]

The Killer Marketing Instinct

In his "Brief Thoughts and Observations" John gruber mentions Apple's improved keynote after the last one at WWDC. It may be improved, but I was struck by what seemed to me a lack of a killer instinct in selling customers on these products. Really they just told us what the products were and forgot to tell us why we needed them.

Just one example. The new iPhone 6s and 6s+ shoot 4k video. In the keynote, they pretty much just mention it as a spec, with no explanation as to why you might want 4k video. Apple supposedly doesn't sell on specs anymore. They don't say how much RAM is in the phones. But simply saying "This phone shoots 4K video" this is like saying, "This iPhone has 2 Gigs of RAM,"and leaving it at that.

Much more compelling would be to show what you could do with 4K video. They might even say, "Why would you want 4k video? Most TV's can't show 4K video; the phone can't show 4K video. And TV's that are 4K, you probably can't see the difference unless it is very large or you are very close. So why would we want to shoot 4K video? Well, look what we can do with image stabilization with 4K." Then they would unveil their new Hyperlapse - like feature in the camera app (which they don't have, but I'm arguing they should) where they shoot video handheld while running around and up stairs and over boulders and then perfectly stabilize the video where it looks like it was shot on a dolly1 - "and the finished video is full 1080p HD.2 This is what professionals do with multi-thousand dollar 4K cameras, but they must then use professional post production software running on pretty high end PC and Mac computers to do the stabilization. We do this built right into the phone." That would be a killer selling feature. (And the 6s can really do this! It probably will if Hyperlapse updates their app to work with the new camera.) It would show the average person why they have to get this new phone. To get an idea of what the demo would look like, check out Hyperlapse.

But they just said, "shoots 4K video."

I'm reminded of the first iPhone announcement, and how Jobs knew how to show killer features. I think my favorite was his prank call to Starbucks from the maps app.

I've noticed that Tim Cook does a lot of telling us how amazing and incredible the products are rather than really showing us. Jobs would say how amazing they were too, but he usually managed to make us believe by demonstrating that amazingness.

It's really one of the most impressive demos of any app. By using the phones' gyroscope and other sensors, it is able to do what used to require pretty intensive computational work in post processing programs like Adobe After Effects. ↩︎

Hyperlapse on current iPhones takes the 1080p video and stabilizes it with a resulting 720p video. ↩︎

[thepixelpeeps]

John Gruber on Daring Fireball calling people “drm-dum-dums”:

I can’t believe she had to write this.

This in reference to Serenity Caldwell’s “No, Apple is Not Adding DRM to Songs on Your Mac you Already Own.”

I can tell you why she had to write this.

I’m sure there are a bunch of internet idiots who spouted off a lot of nonsense about Apple Music and DRM. I was not aware of this. However, I did read Caldwell’s original story on imore, Apple Music vs iTunes Match: What's the difference? and it gave me pause.

The marketing for iTunes Match (released in late 2011) made quite a big deal about users being able to not only stream their music library, but convert their music tracks from low res mp3’s or previously DRMed iTunes purchases to 256 kbps DRM-free AAC files.

Even better, all the music iTunes matches plays back from iCloud at 256-Kbps AAC DRM-free quality — even if your original copy was of lower quality.

In practice, the user could upload all of their songs from their iTunes library, no matter what the quality or Apple DRM status was, and then any of that music that was matched in iTunes would be upgraded to 256 kbps DRM-free AAC files. This meant you could upload your library of ripped-from-CD-crappy-low-res-mp3’s along with your iTunes DRM files to iCloud, delete your iTunes library on your computer, and re-download your library at pristine 256 kbps AAC, all DRM-free. There were lots of articles that gave step by step instructions for doing this. In fact I did this. I encouraged and helped friends and family to do the same. There were some that suggested it might be worth paying $25 once just to do this, and to then turn off iTunes Match, simply to upgrade the quality of the music files and strip the DRM from the music files in their library.

Apple Music is marketed as having basically the same functionality as iTunes Match (plus so much more). If you understood how iTunes Match works, I think you could be forgiven for being surprised to learn that if you did the same upload, delete and download thing with Apple Music, your library of DRM-free music would end up with DRM.

Imagine an old fogy like me (about the same age as John Gruber) who had started ripping songs from their CD collection starting on January 10, 2001 at varying bit rates and formats and now had a library of up to 25,000 songs. You try to do with Apple Music what you can do successfully with iTunes Match. You sign up for Apple Music and let it match all your songs. You delete your iTunes library on your Mac or your hard drive dies wiping out your collection and you re-download your library at pristine 256kbs and viola! Your formally DRM-free library of songs are now DRM. Update: And I'm still not sure what happens if you turn off Apple Music at this point. It seems to me you would not be able to play any of this music anymore.

So, despite Caldwell saying, “No Apple is Not Adding DRM to Songs on Your Mac you Already Own,” they are almost doing so. While they aren’t literally adding it to the files living on your hard drive, they are adding it to your songs you own that were matched and re-downloaded. And wouldn’t you want to re-download your low quality files to get the high quality ones? I wanted to with iTunes Match.

And if you think it through, with Apple Music there is no way on your Mac to upgrade your low res files to 256 kbs ACC without accepting the DRM along with the upgrade. If you didn’t delete your Mac files, thus keeping them DRM free, they would stay the crappy quality that you originally ripped in 2001. (Unless you sign up for iTunes Match alongside Apple Music).

After reading Caldwell’s exhaustive articles explaining the differences between iTunes Match and Apple music plus the follow ups about DRM, I think I understand the differences. But I also think it would be fair for Apple to include a pretty big warning on Apple Music: “Do not delete your original music files from your Mac (as you could with iTunes Match) or the replacements will have DRM. (Or buy iTunes Match along with Apple Music)” I also think it’s ridiculously complicated. How many people in the wider world are going to read all of Serenity Caldwell’s well researched articles and understand all the repercussions?

I’m also not sure it’s fair to call people dum dums who might be concerned about this. Apple seemed to think iTunes Match was a worthy service that could let you upgrade all your music files to DRM free high quality tracks. In fact, they also allowed customers to pay 30 cents per track to remove DRM from previously purchased iTunes tracks. If Apple valued that, and customers valued that, why wouldn’t people be concerned if they found out Apple Music did the opposite?

[thepixelpeeps]

Photos.app More Restricted Than Photos in iOS

Oh man, I was so excited when I read the first reviews of Photos.app along with iCloud photo library. All your photos and videos taken with any camera, all backed up to the cloud and accessible on all your devices. I had great hopes for it. Many have longed for exactly this solution.

My only worry was that you would have to keep all your photos in a managed library within the app's library, locking them away from other programs and workflows. But there was hope! Serenity Caldwell at iMore pointed to a setting that allows you to keep your photos in place on your hard drive and reference them. This would allow any program you like to access those same photos along with photos.app. This would allow you to use, say Lightroom, or photoshop or Pixelmator to access your photo library for heavy duty adjustments that are beyond the scope of photos.app, yet keep everything in place and in sync in photos.app.

However, now that I've used Photos.app, all hope is lost. Here is the catch: If you reference your photos using this setting, they can't be used in iCloud Photo Library. And iCloud Photo Library is really the crux of the whole system; it stores all your photos in iCloud and smartly gives you access to them on all your Apple devices. But if you do let photos.app manage your photos, you have access to this amazing feature, but your photos are stuck inside the app. Your photos are no longer exposed on the finder level for other apps to access.

Also, within photos.app on OSX there is no "Open in" command to open them in another app. And there is no extensions system to let other apps work on your photo files. They are locked away in the app, more so even than in iPhoto or Aperture it seems to me. (Those programs allowed you to open a file in another app - Photoshop say - and edit them and save a copy in place even if you were letting the program manage your photos) And (this is really crazy) your photos are more locked away than in iOS where other apps can access your photo library on your phone, not to mention the extension system that 3rd party apps can take advantage of if they so choose. So photos and videos in photos.app on the Mac are in a weird position of being way less accessible to third party apps than on the supposedly restricted iOS.

I was hoping that maybe this would be addressed with announcement of OSX 10.11 El Capitan at WWDC, but I didn't see any mention of improvement to photos in the keynote. Perhaps there are some unannounced changes in the beta, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

I'm trying to think if this is a weird edge case that Apple wouldn't be likely to address, but obviously it wasn't edge case enough for iPhoto and Aperture to address, and more tellingly it wasn't edge case enough for Apple to add the ability in iOS to let 3rd party apps access your photos in a multitude of ways. Why there is no extension system or even an "open in" command I can't figure.

[thepixelpeeps]

New Steve Jobs Biography

I've got really high hopes for the new Steve Jobs Biographyby Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli. A year ago, when the first one by Walter Isaacson came out I said:

To me, the dramatic crux of Jobs’ life story (and the least understood) is his transformation as a person and a leader during the decade he spent between being booted from Apple and coming back to save the company. . . This is the part of the story that Walter Isaacson totally fumbled in his Steve Jobs biography. . .

According to MacRumors

With the book, Tetzeli and Schlender have aimed to explore the story of how Steve Jobs made the transformation from an arrogant young man exiled from Apple to the visionary leader that skyrocketed Apple to fame.

That's exactly what I would like to learn about and it's precisely what was missing from the Isaacson biography. Here's to hoping that it delivers.

[thepixelpeeps]

“Functional Iceberg” Follow Up

Since John Gruber @gruber was kind enough to respond to my "Wishful Thinking" post, I'm wondering where he stands on his "tip of the functional iceberg" post from September. I'm sure he left himself enough wigle room to claim it was acurate, but my takeaway from the March even was that there was very little said that we didn't already know from the previous event and Apple's website.

Again, that might be enough to make it a tremendous product, but I’m not sure there is much more to the Apple Watch than what we saw back in the fall of 2014.