Special issue on Apple’s California Streaming special event. My highlights, thoughts and observations. Buckle up!
Let’s try something different
Instead of posting my thoughts on my main blog as I usually do after an Apple event, I’m using Revue this time around. So, this newsletter issue is dedicated to Apple’s California Streaming special event. It’s a collection of highlights from around the web (mostly Twitter) and personal observations gathered in Craft during the keynote. I didn’t write my usual “what I expect from Apple’s next keynote”. Why? I think these types of posts are becoming useless in this ocean of “opinions sharing” movement. …
With each release of iOS, Apple includes release notes. This time, I wanted to make something different and comment each of the new feature exposed in those release notes. Let’s start this, right now. Buckle up!
FaceTime
Starting with FaceTime is surprising to me.
Spatial audio makes people’s voices sound like they’re coming from the direction in which they’re positioned on the screen on Group FaceTime calls (iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR and later). — Curious to experience this with my family. Not going to happen at work as we are all on Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Sadly.
Voice…
For the first issue of “Through Apple Observer’s Eyes.”, another useless newsletter that nobody reads, I’ll be using Twitter’s Revue to build it. It’s the right occasion to experience Revue, a new offering in the newsletters space by Twitter. Let’s try this.
This is an exercise
This is another experiment of mine. I’m testing Revue by Twitter, a new newsletter building tool. Think of this newsletter as a review of Revue. Sort of.
I like what I’m seeing. Compared to Substack (you know that I’m on Substack, right?), Revue’s editor is impressive and allows for much more content types to be included within a…
More than ever, Apple has been under a lot of pressure and scrutiny. There is a bad sentiment among the Apple developers community about Apple’s App Store business practices. Apple is on the defensive and doesn’t always offer their best side when it comes to the way they answer critics be it out of court or in court.
Many well-known developers and Apple’s pundits are demanding, loud and clear, wide-ranging changes: reducing the App Store commission, opening up the iPhone to allow sideloading of applications, allowing third-party payment processing platforms, etc. These demands target the iPhone fundamentals. …
Who cares about the latest Apple TV 4K, right? Apple finally did it: a new Apple TV Remote! That one was long in coming. The focus of this post is the new remote. Judging from my experience with Apple’s latest take on the TV remote, I have to admit that designing such device must be a daunting task, because… I’m not sure if waiting all those years was enough to fix everything. My thoughts here.
- I like the weight and the size. Good balance.
- Edges aren’t as sharp as they look in photos, but they could have been made “softer”.
- …
According to Hits Double Daily:
“Apple will announce a new high-fidelity audio streaming tier in the coming weeks at the same $9.99-per-user price point as its standard plan, label sources are telling us.
The announcement is expected to coincide with the launch of the third-generation AirPods. Whether these will be compatible with the new, improved audio offering is unknown.”
I think this upgrade would make sense in order to stay competitive against Spotify while adding new category of more demanding users. This move would likely add to Apple’s bottom line: more revenues dollars. …
Optimizing website experience to stay on top of Google’s updated ranking algorithm coming in May 2021.
Coming in May, Google is going to tweak their ranking algorithm, yet again, by including new experience metrics into the equation. Those changes were first announced back in May 2020. According to a recent post on Yoast’s blog:
In May 2021, Google will add Core Web Vitals as ranking factors in its algorithm. This means your site’s page speed and page loading time will impact your rankings.
And, from Liz Moorehead of ImpactPlus:
…these “page experience signals” will be rolling out in May 2021 as part of an algorithm update, meaning how well you measure up against these page experience…
For me, from now on, the iPad story wil be about iPadOS future releases. Unless Apple drops a big surprise next week, the major iteration for iPadOS will come at the upcoming WWDC conference. Things like better external monitor support, tweaked multitasking, improvements to Files.app just to name a few are mandatory for the next chapter of the iPad.
The latest macOS release, numbered 11.0 and named Big Sur, is a major overhaul of Apple’s oldest operating system platform. Big Sur is a turning point for the Mac (see “My Top 5 iPadOS & iOS Apps for macOS Big Sur”). When running Big Sur on Apple Silicon powered machines, with a few tweaks and the use of third-party utilities, you’ve got a much improved productivity-friendly desktop experience. Here is my setup.
Apple’s macOS Big Sur came pre-installed on my M1 powered Mac mini last fall. I did not restore from a backup to set it up, instead I chose…
Substack is getting a lot of attention, in good and bad ways. They are attracting journalists and great writers, but they also take controversial positions. As a Substack user, with a few things that I don’t like about it, it’s time for me to have a look at alternatives, just in case something goes really bad. In recent weeks, I’ve been testing Buttondown, another newsletter hosting service.
Buttondown competes against Substack, Mailchimp, Tinyletter, to name a few. As a Substack user, I wanted to give a shot at this alternative because, from a distance, it looked better, more professional. …
