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Ben Hinc

Tag: Apple

Reading Between the Lines — March 31, 2023

Reading Between the Lines

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Reuters:

General Motors (GM.N) plans to phase out widely-used Apple CarPlay and Android Auto technologies that allow drivers to bypass a vehicle’s infotainment systems, shifting instead to built-in infotainment systems developed with Google for future electric vehicles.

And:

GM’s decision to stop offering those systems in future electric vehicles, starting with the 2024 Chevrolet Blazer, could help the automaker capture more data on how consumers drive and charge EVs.

And:

The automaker is accelerating a strategy for its EVs to be platforms for digital subscription services.

A surface-level reading of this article instantly riles up any frequent user of Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. For many, the first thing they do when getting in their vehicle is plugging their phone in. For those fortunate enough to have wireless Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, it just happens, as is the case for some GM vehicles. Perhaps it takes someone who doesn’t use either smartphone projection technology to dig a little deeper.

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Hot Takes Make for Poor Analysis — January 19, 2020

Hot Takes Make for Poor Analysis

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Three weeks ago, Brydge teased the Brydge Pro+, a device similar to the existing Brydge Pro keyboard for the 2018 iPad Pro but with a trackpad centered on the palm rest. Since then, pre-orders have opened for the product.

Here’s a snippet of John Voorhees’ reactive article at MacStories wherein the “feature” he references is iPadOS 13’s pointing device support:

I’ve experimented with the feature on several occasions, but until it’s more refined, I have a hard time seeing myself using a pointing device with my iPad Pro regularly. As a result, I’m not that interested in the Brydge Pro+, but I’ll withhold my final judgment on that score until I’ve seen reviews by people who have used production models of the device and tried one myself.

If MacStories is going to insist on incorporating opinionated nonsense in every article, wouldn’t it make sense to have someone write about the Brydge Pro+ who’s used iPadOS’s pointing device support more than on “several occasions”?

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Services Enhance Apple’s Ecosystem — December 14, 2018

Services Enhance Apple’s Ecosystem

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Many Apple pundits and analysts point to its services business as the future of the company and a major source of future revenue. I don’t deny that services revenue is steadily going up while hardware revenue is heading in the opposite direction.

Yet, I still see Apple as primarily, fundamentally and foundationally a hardware company. Its services exist to sell more hardware. When Apple makes money on services — sometimes, a lot of money — it only adds to the bottom line.

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Chromium’s Gain Is the Web’s Loss — December 10, 2018

Chromium’s Gain Is the Web’s Loss

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John Gruber, writing at Daring Fireball:

This difference in priorities is why Google forked Chrome’s rendering engine from WebKit in 2013. Which, in turn, makes me wonder what the endgame will look like with Microsoft adopting Chrome. Is Microsoft really going to stick with Chrome, under Google’s ultimate control, or will they fork it, the way Google forked WebKit?

Gruber’s question is the wrong one. The concern isn’t that Microsoft might fork Blink — the rendering engine that underlies not just Chrome but the Chromium open-source base upon which Chrome is built — but that its choice of Google’s project over another puts more control of the internet under Google’s purview.

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Messages in a Web Browser — February 2, 2018

Messages in a Web Browser

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Juli Clover, writing for Mac Rumors:

As of iOS 11.3, Messages in iCloud is back and is available for “testing and evaluation purposes,” marking the official return of the feature. According to Apple’s release notes, once iOS 11.3 beta 1 is installed, Messages will prompt users to turn on Messages in the Cloud when it is first launched.

Messages in the Cloud is automatically enabled for users who have two-factor authentication and iCloud Backup enabled, says Apple.

The new Messages in iCloud feature will be a welcome change for iPhone, iPad, and Mac users who prefer not to delete their messages. Over the course of several years, Messages can take up a lot of space. That space can now be freed up with the bulk of older messages stored directly in iCloud rather than on-device.

As a paid developer, I’ve been testing iOS 11.3 since its beta release. Quick, reliable and trouble-free message syncing between devices is a feature I’ve longed for and — at least between the iPhone X and current-generation iPad that have the beta installed — it’s finally here.

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