Содержание выпуска: 147 — iPad & iPhone User

Apple’s latest quarterly results are in, and they’re just what you’d expect: the portrait of a company that’s massively profitable and successful, but whose main product is lagging behind while new product lines are growing just fast enough to make up the difference. I guess we yawn at $53.8 billion in revenue these days – that’s a record for Apple’s sleepy third fiscal quarter, but up only 1 percent over 2018’s record Q3. As always, the devil’s in the details – and fortunately for us, Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri spend an hour on the phone once a quarter to provide a few little details – or as they like to say on these calls, “more colour” – that can help us understand the current state of…

The race to 5G just added a new lane. Following a report in the Wall Street Journal, Apple confirmed that it will be acquiring the majority of Intel’s smartphone modem chip business, which went belly-up earlier this year. The transaction is valued at $1 billion and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year, Apple said in a press release. Intellectual property exchanging hands between industry giants isn’t exactly earth-shattering news, but this deal has significant ramifications. Just four months ago, Apple and Intel were partners on the development of the iPhone’s 5G modem, but that abruptly ended in one fell swoop when Apple and Qualcomm settled their long-time court case and Intel “announced its intention to exit the 5G smartphone modem business and complete an assessment…

At first sight, it looks weird to use an Apple Pencil on an iPhone, but if we’re looking at comparable dimensions, it’s not all that different from writing in a Moleskine pocket notebook with a regular pen or pencil. Apple may have had a similar realization lately, as new rumours from Citi Research (via Business Insider) claim that the iPhone will finally get “support for [an] iPhone pencil/stylus” later this year. Not only have we been hearing variations on this rumour for months now, but it even makes some sense now that Apple has finally relented and rolled out Apple Pencil support to all current models of the iPad. At this point, what’s another device? But rather than focusing on if we’ll be able to use the Apple Pencil with…

When it comes to security, we often think primarily of protecting our data: encrypting it to make sure that nobody else can access it. But just as important as that is the concept of authentication: proving that we are who we say we are. Apple has made great strides with authentication in the past few years. Biometric measures such as Touch ID and Face ID help make it easier for users to identify themselves and ensure that only they can access their private data. In Apple’s usage, that authentication has generally been inward-facing: users control access to their own files and data, and the system checks to see whether or not we are the person who should be allowed in. But beginning in iOS 13, a few minor updates will…

The Apple Watch is a fantastic fitness tracker. Maybe too good, in fact. Between heart rate and variability, movement tracking, exercise tracking, walking, standing, calories, flights, steps... there’s just so much to take in. The Health app on your iPhone is a treasure trove of fitness data, but it can be hard to get the big picture. Apple’s redesigned Summary page and Highlights in the Health app go a long way to addressing that, but the best way to get a clear, simple picture of whether or not you’re making any progress in your fitness goals is to use the new Trends feature in the Activity app in iOS 13. The Trends tab Open the Activity app on your iPhone and you’ll get a window into all the fitness tracking…

Apple has announced that it plans to buy the “majority of Intel’s smartphone modem business”, following recent rumours to that effect. The deal will cost Apple about one billion dollars, and should close in the fourth quarter of this year, subject to regulatory approval. For the price, Apple will acquire approximately 2,200 Intel employees along with intellectual property, equipment, and leases. The deal will greatly boost Apple’s patent portfolio, taking the company to over 17,000 patents related to current and future wireless technology. Apple is only acquiring Intel’s smartphone modem business, however. Intel will still be able to develop modems for non-smartphone applications such as PCs, smart cars, or IoT applications. Intel CEO Bob Swan painted this as a win for its company. “This agreement enables us to focus on…

August has been one of the most interesting months for iOS games in 2019 so far. Thatgamecompany released its first game in ages – and on iOS first, no less – and Nintendo revived Dr. Mario and packaged it for the tastes of players accustomed to Candy Crush Saga. The App Store also gave us a port of one of the best recent action RPGs from consoles, a relaxing indie game, and the surprise return of Apple’s own Texas Hold’em. Hyper Light Drifter Price: £4.99 from fave.co/2YG3tKD Hyper Light Drifter is an action RPG that’s only three years old, although its pixel art style makes it look like a relic from my childhood. It combines artful minimalist storytelling about a ‘drifter’ suffering from a mysterious illness with gameplay that was…

If your Mac is running macOS Catalina, you can now use your iPad as a secondary monitor with the new ‘Sidecar’ feature. It’s ridiculously easy to set up wirelessly through AirPlay. First, a few notes. Unlike with some existing third-party screen-sharing apps such as Air Display 3, you can really only use your fingers on the display for simple actions such as scrolling through text. The Apple Pencil works as a ‘mouse’, though, and that includes using it to alter and create images through the full version of Adobe Photoshop while we’re waiting on the proper iPad version to appear. Apart from the Apple Pencil, interaction involves a number of shortcuts on the borders of the interface, and you can press these with your fingers. Notably, Apple also includes relevant…

The end goal of Apple’s augmented reality programme is currently a mystery, particularly in light of a recent DigiTimes rumour claiming that Apple disbanded the team for responsible for its AR head-mounted display. This report flies in the face of a slightly earlier report from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claiming we’d see some kind of Apple AR headset as early as next year. There’s little doubt, though, that Apple is still championing augmented reality with a zeal we find in few other competitors, and the progress in the new ARKit 3 (and so in iOS 13 and iPadOS) feels like a great leap forward. That leap is so great, in fact, that the many of the features only work with iPhones or iPads running A12 chips or better. (And for that…

The most oft-used app on our iPhones is probably Safari. It is the default web browser, after all. But just behind that, and arguably more important, is the app we use to find, download, and update most of our other apps: the App Store. Back in iOS 11, Apple gave the App Store its first big facelift in a years when it added its own editorial content in a new Today tab, split Games and Apps into their own tabs, and redesigned app pages. In iOS 13, the App Store is going through another significant revision. It’s not quite as big a reorganization as in iOS 11, but it’s a significant change to how you update and manage your apps. Here’s what’s new in the iOS 13 App Store. Dark…

In the wake of backlash over a Guardian report that exposed employees who were tasked with analysing Siri recordings for accuracy and quality, Apple has announced it is temporarily suspending the programme as it decides how to proceed. In a statement to TechCrunch, an Apple spokesperson said the company is “committed to delivering a great Siri experience while protecting user privacy. While we conduct a thorough review, we are suspending Siri grading globally.” Apple added that users will have the ability to choose whether they want to participate in the programme as part of an upcoming software update. The Siri grading process was exposed in July when one of the contractors contacted The Guardian claiming that they “regularly hear confidential medical information, drug deals, and recordings of couples having sex”…

The iPad isn’t really the laptop replacement Apple wants us to think it is, but anyone who outright dismisses it as a productivity device shouldn’t be taken too seriously, either. The iPad can feel magical when you have the knowledge of the right tricks at hand. Once you’ve mastered them, work sometimes feels fun. It may not be a MacBook, but you’d be wrong to dismiss it as giant iPhone. Here’s a little introduction to the wizardry Apple conceals beneath the familiar facade of iOS. Some tips basically amount to refreshers, but other bits may make you whisper, “Wow”. (I’m speaking from my own experience.) Once you’ve got these tools at your disposal, you’ll understand why Apple has such a ridiculous lead in the tablet market. 1. Use Split…

Here’s a truth we’ve had to endure for the iPad’s entire lifespan until now: The bigger the iPad, the bigger the frustration of typing on the screen when you’re holding the tablet like a clipboard. One hand had to hold up the iPad, leaving the index finger of your other hand to hunt and peck its way across the QuickType keyboard on the expansive screen. It certainly didn’t help that the normal keyboard is simply bad for presentation because it obscures around a fourth of the screen. Apple originally attempted to solve this problem by letting you split the keyboard in two halves, but it is removing that feature with iPadOS. That’s because it introduces a better option: now there’s a floating iPhone-sized keyboard that can freely move to any…

It only took 12 years, but Apple Maps will finally get a feature that resembles Google’s Street View when iOS 13 and iPadOS drop sometime later this year. (Unfortunately, it doesn’t work with macOS.) Look Around works a lot like Street View, but it comes with some attractions of its own, including smoother transition animations and photos that use parallax in order deliver a 3D-like depth you don’t find Google Maps. It’s also easy to use, as you can see below. One catch: Look Around is currently a very limited feature, as you’ll only be able to use it in the United States, and even then you can only use it in places like the Hawaiian island of Oahu and California’s San Francisco Bay Area. Apple is steadily collecting imagery…

It’s 2019 and yet iPads remain married to the person who set them up. Apple may chatter a lot about privacy, but the fact that the firm insists on keeping its tablets tied to a single Apple ID means there’s little that’s private about sharing an iPad. This arrangement has never made much sense, but it’s especially bizarre in light of the avalanche of quality-of-life changes the tech giant unleashed at this year’s WWDC. Almost every long-standing grievance got attention. With iPadOS, we can finally take Apple’s tablet somewhat seriously as a laptop alternative. We can use mice on iPads now. Safari finally looks much like it does on a Mac. The firm was so keen to improve its software that it even introduced support for multiple users on the…