Rumors about an Apple media event in March got serious this week with a story from Japanese site Mac Otakara. According to the story, Apple will hold a media event in March—in keeping with last year—where the company will introduce a new iPhone SE and new iPad models.
Game of Thrones 'A Dance with Dragons' iBooks Enhanced Edition on Preorder
Apple’s iBooks Store added the Enhanced Edition of George R.R. Martin’s A Dance with Dragons over the weekend. It will ship on March 30th, and includes new artwork, an expanded glossary, more information about the houses, maps, and more.
Returning to U.S. With iPhone? What Are Your Rights?
When returning to the U.S. from travel, border agents may select you for various reasons for a more detailed questioning. Your smartphone may be requested. You may be asked to unlock it for agents to inspect. What are your rights in this case? Two interesting articles at The New York Times and ars technica go into considerable legal detail about what might happen if you refuse to cooperate. The links and more are on page 2 ofFridays Particle Debris.
TMO Background Mode: Interview with Open Source Developer & Former Apple Manager Jordan Hubbard
Jordan Hubbard, the co-founder of FreeBSD, spent a dozen years at Apple bringing coherence to the UNIX core of Mac OS X. Apple calls it macOS today, but in the early years, there were lots of rough spots integrating the partly FreeBSD core into a viable consumer Mac OS X. Jordan was also instrumental in modernizing Mac OS X with features like MacPorts, Launchd, Grand Central Dispatch and application sandboxing. Today, his work complete at Apple, Jordan is an open source developer. We talked about the early development of Mac OS X derived from NeXT and even the earliest BSD origins. Along the way, we also chatted about Jordan’s childhood memories as an 8-year old being an electronics geek with Radio Shack as his Mecca. If you love macOS, don’t miss this insightful historical tour.
Apple's Facial Recognition Plans, the AI Race - TMO Daily Observations 2017-02-20
Apple buying RealFace has people talking even more about using facial recognition to unlock our iPhones. John Martellaro and Bryan Chaffin join Jeff Gamet to talk about Apple’s potential plans and what they think the company has in store for facial recognition technology. They also look at Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa and the race for mainstream artificial intelligence.
iOS 10 and Swift 3 Starter Bundle: $45
We have a deal on a training bundle for developers called the iOS 10 and Swift 3 Starter Bundle. It includes five different courses, including: The Complete iOS 10 Developer, iOS 10 Projects: Build Amazing Apps with Apple’s Newest iOS, Swift 3 Fundamentals & Essential Training, iOS 10, Swift 3 Hands On Features. and Master iOS 10 + Swift 3 & Create Apps. That hundreds of lessons and more than 81 hours of video training, all for $45. Note that coupon code “LEARN50” will allow TMO readers to get 50% of this course, making it $22.50.
Don't Fear The Wi-Fi – Mac Geek Gab 645
Inexpensive quasi-mesh Wi-Fi, cloud management for your videos, changing your Finder icons and upgrading your Mac’s Wi-Fi to the latest standards are just how this show starts out! From there it’s on to answering your questions about monitoring iOS data usage, looking at PDF data – all of it! – and then your geeks dive into the Wi-Fi danger conspiracy! We promise you’ll learn at least four new things!
Apple Answers Tweets in 4 New iPad Pro Ads
Apple launched four new iPad commercials that respond to real tweets from real folks. The first (included below) is in response to a tweet about iPad not being a real computer. The second spot addresses a tweet about poor Wi-Fi. The third answers whether Microsoft Word is on the iPad (it is), and the fourth notes that iPads aren’t subject to PC viruses. The Twitter accounts are real (Tweet 1 account, Tweet 2, Tweet 3 account, Tweet 4), and The Verge reported that Apple contacted at least one of the tweeters before using their tweets. There’s almost zero chance Apple didn’t do so with all of them. But, Apple used actors to represent the Twitter account owners. It’s an interesting campaign. Some have already noted it’s reminiscent of Apple’s “Get a Mac” campaign. More interesting, though, is that this is the first time I can remember Apple addressing questions like these, especially in an ad. The company is also leveraging social media, an area that hasn’t typically been a strong suit for Apple. They’re not my favorite spots from Apple, but they’re solid. It will be interesting to see if this becomes a major campaign.
WWDC in San Jose Is Closer and Other Apple Insights
We had a good discussion about Apple moving WWDC back to San Jose on Thursday’s Daily Observations. In that discussion, we talked about how much easier it would be for Apple engineers to attend an event in San Jose because it wouldn’t necessarily suck up a whole day and hours of travel. We also talked about proximity to Apple Campus 2.0, and the reality San Jose is less expensive. Daring Fireball‘s John Gruber discussed the move with Apple senior vice president Phil Schiller, who confirmed most of what we thought. Mr. Gruber also pointed out that Apple’s WWDC is a much bigger deal to San Jose than it ever was to San Francisco. He said Apple was working with San Jose’s mayor and others to stage events throughout the week, something San Francisco never did to my knowledge. Check out his piece—it’s a good read.
AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Unlimited Data Plan Comparison
After spending years pressuring customers to give up their unlimited data plans, the cell carriers have come full circle and are offering unlimited data plans. Sorting out which carrier offers the best deal—AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, or Verizon—isn’t exactly straight forward, so we ranked each based on their features. Read on to see which comes out on top.