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Physical Music Purchases Surpass iTunes Downloads

Andrew Orr ·

Sales of physical music media, like CDs and vinyls, have surpassed the number of people downloading music from iTunes. Which makes sense because everyone else has moved on to streaming music, which accounted for 75% of revenue last year for the recording industry.

Downloads represented just 11 percent of US labels’ revenue last year, a music industry trade group said Thursday. Physical sales — the term for music formats you can actually hold, which are mostly CDs and vinyl at this point — booked 12 percent.

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Apple is Hiring More Software Employees Than Hardware

Andrew Orr ·

For the first time in years, Apple has been hiring more software employees than hardware employees. I think this is a great move because Apple software is generally basic.

It makes sense for Apple: its hardware is now not only ubiquitous, but demand has finally plateaud. At the end of 2018 (right around when Apple began its earnest search for more software people), it became very clear that the iPhone was no longer Apple’s meal ticket as sales lagged followed by a very rare warnings call from Tim Cook.

So now what? Lock people into the ecosystem with software and services. How to get there? Hire people who know how to build that walled garden.

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Siri Shortcuts Might Just Be Misunderstood

Charlotte Henry ·

Thursday’s update to Siri Shortcuts got writer Lance Ulanoff wondering if the feature is actually widely misunderstood. He saw it in action, working with apps that made an Espresso on command or could order your favourite pizza. He posted a column on Medium about the demo, and how Siri Shortcuts works. He concluded that the “ability to take deep dives into disparate apps without even touching your phone” is “the most compelling aspect” of the feature.

Getting Siri to launch an action isn’t that surprising, but what iPhone and iOS 12 users might not realize is the extent to which Siri’s been watching them and using local machine learning to build up a potential library of Siri Shortcut actions. It starts pretty simply. If you drag your thumb down on your home screen, you’ll immediately see a collection of 4-to-8 apps selected by Siri as those you use most often. There are also those Siri Suggestions that helpfully popup on your lock-screen offering to, for instance, initiate a call that its gleaned from your schedule.

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New Siri Shortcuts for Third-Party Health and Fitness Apps

Charlotte Henry ·

Apple highlighted a number of third-party health apps that have been updated to work with Siri Shortcuts Thursday. AppleInsider reported that the updated apps included QardioArm smart blood pressure, skiing-app Snoww as well as Streaks, WaterMinder, and Yazio. It also noted Apples suggestion that users could create personalized routines with these new Siri Shortcuts.

The apps Apple has selected offer a wide variety of functions to promote a healthy and active lifestyle, in a number of new ways. Following an announcement from Thursday about new additions to the Siri Shortcuts roster, the new batch of third-party health services cover both apps and hardware that can communicate with iPhones and other items in the Apple ecosystem.

 

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Apple Watch Health Features Can Change Medicine

Andrew Orr ·

Apple Watch health features and fitness tracking have the potential to change medicine. Dan Hon writes how his friend’s Apple Watch helped him.

One day, while I was testing my own Apple Watch, Tom was deconstructing a rack of network equipment. He suddenly noticed his heart was pounding. Then he began feeling dizzy. Next came tunnel vision. He needed to sit down.

I think more and more health features will come to the Apple Watch,, such as blood glucose monitoring.