• Living in a hot and humid Brunswick, Ohio (for now). Seriously, the heat has been out of control for this early in the summer. Can’t wait to put the apartment complex’s pool to good use soon! Next month, my wife and I will be taking a trip out to Washington State to check out as a possible next state to call home. Moving west has always been in the cards for us, and we’re aiming for the end of the year to make it a reality. I’m pretty amped!
• I’m no longer working for the Boy Scouts of America. I ended my employment with them about a month ago, and am currently seeking new and different opportunities. While I still firmly believe in the mission of the BSA, it was the right time for me to move on for my own health, for some . Outdoor recreation and education are as important now as they have ever been, and I look forward to contributing as a volunteer while I pursue other interests professionally. It turns out when you work as an administrator or director for outdoor recreation, there’s precious little time to partake in it yourself as a participant. I can’t wait to be able to spend more time reestablishing my skills as a climber, guide, and outdoor educator. I’ve interviewed at a few places, and hope to have an offer for a new job by next week. 🤞
• In the months leading up to my departure, a few major projects took a lot of my time and energy, which meant I really fell off the fitness bandwagon. But I’m happy to report that I’m back at it again with a routine established. Phin and I have gotten our runs up to four miles, and my rings are a motivator once more.
• Likewise, my writing here at HeyDingus took a backseat for a while. But the combination of more time available these past few weeks, a trove of blog post ideas saved up, and the plethora of announcements coming out of WWDC, the hiatus is over. I’m actually currently trying to wrangle my thoughts on what stuff should be published as a blog post versus a tweet.
• Being fully vaccinated and with COVID restrictions lifting, the world has become a larger place once again. My wife and I have made two big travel trips, and I’ve had a few more myself. It feels good — if weird — to get out and about. My immediate family have been fortunate to not catch COVID, but we, like so many others, did not escape having people we know and love become sick and sadly pass due to the virus. Go get vaccinated.
• I just had to check my Goodreads account because I’m between books at the moment. I did finally finish Morning Star and A Promised Land. After those, I moved on to Becoming by Michelle Obama which I enjoyed as an audiobook narrated by the former First Lady herself, and All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, and The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal — all of which were excellent. All the Light We Cannot See was particularly moving. This was the yearly “classic” book gifted to me by my mother-in-law, and it was a great choice. Set in the years of World War 2, but alternating between the point of views of two growing children, one in Germany and one from Paris, the story is riveting, harrowing, and makes you feel. The Relentless Moon was a fun (if meandering at times) addition to the Lady Astronaut series. I think I’m going to stick with the space theme and go for Artemis by Andy Weir next. Andy wrote The Martian which enthralled me.
• My queue of online articles and YouTube videos has taken priority over games as of late. I did have the chance recently to play Ticket to Ride and Overcooked 2 with my wife and a friend. Both are fun and engaging games, but at utterly opposite ends of the spectrum. Ticket to Ride is a slow, calm, and strategic board game in which you build railroad lines to connect cities across the US. Overcooked is a fast-paced, chaotic, and reactive Switch game where you fulfill restaurant orders as a team by chopping, cooking, and combining various ingredients.
• From my TV watchlist, I’d been looking forward to the return of Trying (cute British comedy), and Mythic Quest (taking on some tougher subjects like gender equality this season), both of which have started releasing episodes of their second seasons. For new stuff, I was utterly drawn in by Mosquito Coast (boy, I love me some Justin Theroux) which just ended, and I finally got around to starting season one of Veep (its comedy style is right up my alley so far). My wife and I continue to binge Modern Family, which I’m eager to wrap up. I haven’t done a ton of movies lately, but I have been making my way through a slow rewatch of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in timeline order (a fun look back), and caught Tenet (absolutely bananas of a movie, but intriguing) on HBO Max.
• As I type, I’m jamming to a specially curated jazz playlist full of tracks enabled for Spatial Audio. That new audio format has kickstarted an effort to listen back to old favorites that have been remastered for it. Bleachers and Montaigne are my two newest artist muses, so they make up a large portion of my listening history.
• My latest hobby has been learning to code using Swift Playgrounds. I’ve always had an interest, and I figure if it turns out to be something that I enjoy — and it “sticks” — it could be another basket with which to differentiate career options.

Wow, this Now update has run a bit long, I guess I’ve just had words stored up! I’ll try to rein it in next month.

Now Journal

Basic Apple Guy with a comprehensive look at what makes the new Siri Remote so great:

Just how much Apple doubled down on creating a remote that functions so much better than the previous Siri Remote is intriguing. There is no technical reason for why this remote needed to be as thick, tall, and chunky as it ended up being. Instead, its design appears intended to compliment the environment and ergonomics of how it will be used.

It may seem obvious that a remote should be designed around its intended environment and ergonomics, but that certainly wasn’t the case for the previous version.

I’m in agreement with nearly everything in this piece — the size is better, the click-wheel touch surface more functional, and the dedicated power button a nice bonus. I do, however, use the Siri button, and like its new position on the side to match with the iPhone. It looks like the Remote app will be updated to match.

And, yes, the placement of the mute and play/pause buttons is backwards.

I have a gripe with the mute button being the bottommost button on the remote and would have preferred Apple keep the Play/Pause button located there instead. I’m far more likely to want to pause than mute someone, so having it remain the bottommost button makes more sense to my use case.

Go to the linked site →

Linked

From Filipe Espósito at 9to5Mac:

While I don’t expect Apple will make the Pro Display XDR more affordable, the company should reconsider bringing back Cinema Display as an alternative for regular users. It doesn’t have to feature a 32-inch 6K display with super HDR or Mini-LED, but it can have above-average quality with the macOS integration that only Apple can do.

Nobody makes great displays like Apple. What I’d love to see is a redesigned Thunderbolt Display that takes the best-in-class panel from the iMac, and pairs it with a touch-capable layer. Not necessarily to enable touch on macOS, but instead to allow touch input when connected to an iPad.¹ Bonus points if it features a hinge mechanism like the Surface Studio for using that touchscreen with the Apple Pencil.

Go to the linked site →

Linked

I’ll be honest, when Apple flipped the switch to turn on Spatial Audio in Apple Music, I didn’t quite get it.

Spatial Audio is a new technology for music that expands from the two channels in stereo music to having the entire 3D space available to surround the listener with sound. Apple’s implementation uses Dolby Atmos as the format to deliver Spatial Audio.

The promise for “the future of music” (News link without a paywall) had me as eager as Christmas morning, and I couldn’t wait to try it out. So when reports came in that first tracks were appearing in Apple Music on Monday afternoon, I grabbed my favorite headphones, made sure the Dolby Atmos settings were enabled, and threw on a familiar album to try it out. For me, it was Taylor Swift’s excellent folklore. And while the music sounded good, it wasn’t earth-shattering as Apple’s marketing had led me to believe.

That was until I tried it with the “Jazz in Spatial Audio” playlist. Then the barrier was shattered, and I “got” it. With those songs (here’s the track that did it for me), it sounds like you’re standing within the band as they play around you. The separation between instruments is astounding.

The difference with the jazz, I think, was that I could better isolate the individual instruments and tell how they were positioned in the virtual space of surround sound. It also helped when I realized I could check the difference between spatial and stereo audio by turning Dolby Atmos off and on while a song was playing. When switching to stereo, every sound comes across as crushed together and in competition for attention. After that, I went back to lyrical tracks and compared them with Spatial Audio on and off — the difference is stark, and I much prefer the songs with it enabled.

A friend and I spent several hours last night swapping songs back and forth and gushing over how great they sounded.¹ It’s been a ton of fun to rediscover old favorites on this new sound stage. Soundtrack scores sound like you’re within a personal movie theater with the orchestra coming at you from all sides. Singer/Songwriter tracks sound intimate as if the artist is singing just for you. Pop is wide and punchy. Everything has space and depth that makes each sound like a live performance.

I’ll echo what others are saying, that the quality of the spatial effect varies from track to track. Most that I’ve tried do sound incredible, while others are a little off. For example, in “Stacy’s Mom” by Fountains of Wayne, the instruments were too quiet in the background behind the vocals. When switching from stereo, I felt like I was straining to hear those bits of the song. I imagine that, like with anything new in the toolbox, artists and their producers will figure how best to use it. I’m eager to hear how it will impact artists’ creative process as they craft new music with Spatial Audio in mind — if it gets widespread adoption.

Suppose you don’t hear the difference at first when trying Spatial Audio, as I didn’t. In that case, I recommend turning it off and on while tracks are playing from within the Settings app (or touch and hold on the volume slider in Control Center when using AirPods Pro or AirPods Max). By doing that, you should be able to tell if you like it much more effectively than when listening in a vacuum.

So here’s to the future of music. Besides the Spatial Audio playlists curated in Apple Music (definitely try the Jazz in Spatial Audio one), below is a list with a few albums and playlists that I recommend trying out:

• Celebrating John Williams by Los Angeles Philharmonic
• What’s Up by 4 Non Blondes
• folklore and evermore by Taylor Swift
• Come Away With Me by Norah Jones
• Maniac by Halsey

Music

After some minor sleuthing, I think the name “iMac Pro” will be reintroduced and fully replace the 27-inch iMac. The M1 iMac webpage doesn’t include the phrase “24-inch iMac” anywhere. The 27-inch iMac page, on the other hand, alludes to its size everywhere. If the larger, higher-powered model were to share the standard iMac name, you’d think the 24-inch would continue to include that differentiator.

When the iMac Pro was discontinued earlier this year, I figured Apple would explain it by saying the regular iMacs, powered by Apple Silicon, were so powerful that there be no need for a “Pro.” There would be smaller and larger versions, as usual, and that would satisfy the iMac market just like it did before the iMac Pro was a thing. Because otherwise, why not keep selling the old iMac Pro until an Apple Silicon version was ready? Now I think it was simply a matter of supply and demand, along with wanting to clear the decks for a grand reintroduction.¹

Without copy to change on the 24-inch iMac’s marketing page, the transition will be that much easier.

John Gruber’s take on the internal letter regarding Apple’s new remote work policy has sparked a lot of criticism in the community. Zac Hall, writing at 9to5Mac, offers what I think is a measured and reasonable critique of the issues at hand:

My guess is that simply choosing Thursday and Friday as optional remote days would provide too little friction for employees who choose to work this way. A more generous reading is that this formula optimizes for productivity based on data we don’t have. Tim Cook is also careful to describe the planned remote work policy as a pilot program that is subject to change. I take this to mean that optional remote work days could be reduced or eliminated if whatever metric Apple is measuring is too low.

Any condoned remote work is a big change for Apple, so I’m hopeful that the pilot period will result in more flexibility, not less. But I also can’t help but wonder if it’s truly a pilot, why not start with a majority remote days per week?

Zac views John’s dismissal of the letter as missing the point:

Next, suggesting that open communication between employees about the workforce that they make up is somehow the bigger problem is mighty off. If it weren’t Slack, it would be an email chain or groups of vocal employees who organize together. I think there’s a dangerous line being drawn when you question whether a vocal workforce is a feature or a bug.

I agree — employees having a mechanism to be heard is important, but in the end it only matters if their leadership team is listening.

Go to the linked site →

Linked

A few days ago I posted my wishes for today’s keynote announcements. Now it’s time to compare what we actually got and what I’d still like to see!

watchOS

• 🤷‍♂️ Better Shortcuts support. I haven’t seen anything big yet.
• 👍 Speak workout status over headphones. Horray!
• 👎 Widgets. No changes to the app switcher, complications, or expansion of widgets to watchOS.
• 👎 A better solution for status icons on the watch face. No change that I can find.

macOS

• 👍 Shortcuts app. Yes, in a big way, with the promise of a multi-year development with Shortcuts at the center of Mac automation.
• 👎 Fix Notification Center. While notifications themselves got new features, interacting with them and their home in Notification Center looks to be unchanged.
• 👎 Widgets on the desktop. Again, no change that I can see. They still live with notifications in Notification Center.
• 🤷‍♂️ Fix the FileVault system. This remains to be seen. I never expected it to be a consumer-facing announcement, so I’ll keep my ears to the ground.

iOS

• 👎 Better Family Sharing for Photos. Nope. They got close with other Family Sharing features and even automatic saving of shared photos in Messages, but no Family Library or the like.
• 👎 A full-on Authentication app. Very close! It looks like Apple’s made improvements here, including auto-filling one-time codes, but it’s still tucked away within the Passwords setting section.
• 👎 Multi-stop planning in maps. We got some significant improvements in Maps, and, boy, do they look pretty. But no multi-stop routes as far as I can tell.
• 👎 Support for dynamic wallpapers. A no-show for another year.

iPadOS

• 👍 A refinement, if not overhaul, of multitasking. I’d say this is exactly what we got. The iPad got new multitasking keyboard shortcuts, gestures, and flexibility, but it’s all built upon the previous foundation rather than reimagined.
• 👍 App Library and Widgets on the Home Screen. These were the lowest of hanging fruit, and Apple picked them.
• 👎 Useful external monitor support. Looks like we’ll be waiting for this until Apple’s consumer monitor makes an appearance. 🤞
• 👎 System extensions that can be always-on. This was a long shot, and I haven’t found any hint of it.

Grab Bag

• 👎 An Apple web search engine. Nope. iCloud Private Relay is a welcome addition to online privacy, but a search engine it is not.
• 👎 Overhaul the Music app across all the platforms. Disappointingly, only watchOS’s Music app got redesigned.
• 👎 In-App Purchase improvements for developers. If it were to be announced this week, I would have pegged it to be at the State of the Union. If any changes are coming, it’ll probably be a press release at another time.

Across 19 picks, I got four right (21% 👍), 13 wrong (68% 👎), and two that remain to be seen (11% 🤷‍♂️). Not a great score as far as wishes coming true, but I’m still happy with today’s announcements. And I guess this gives me a head start on next year’s wish list. 😉

WWDC

If I had to sum up the announcements that Apple made today about the next major versions of their operating systems, I’d say that seems like a quality of life year for both users and developers. And, honestly, I feel great about that! Apple picked a lot of low-hanging fruit this year, and sometimes that’s the sweetest. I like to think of the minor improvements as healing many of the paper cuts we’ve felt throughout the years.

Apple picked the right targets, too. Improvements to FaceTime and Messages will help millions of people who use them every day. Live Text and Visual Look Up may be old hat to those who have tried Google Lens before but will be jaw-dropping to those who haven’t. New Health features are always welcome, and I enjoy seeing Apple acknowledge with features like Health Sharing and Apple ID Legacy Contacts that users don’t live silos. Quick Notes aren’t flashy, but they’ll be powerful and helpful for everyone who discovers them.

That’s not to say that there weren’t revolutionary introductions today. Universal Control blows my mind and has the potential to change the way I work between devices. Shortcuts on Mac will allow many of us to use automation to make out computers work even better for us without recreating workflows or switching devices. And app development on the iPad takes a huge step forward today.

Leading up to WWDC each year, features are a bit like Schrödinger’s cat — they can exist in hopes, dreams, and concepts, but we don’t know if they’re real until Apple pulls back the curtain. So despite some contention between Apple and their developer community, the anticipation for this WWDC felt particularly amped. From my perspective, Apple delivered. If the features showed off in the Keynote and State of the Union weren’t enough, digging through all the features on the marketing webpages and staying glued to Twitter¹ have revealed so much that I can’t wait to try out. Well done, Apple engineers, designers, and everyone who made these releases possible.

I’ll leave you with hot takes on the features that caught my attention today:

For Users

FaceTime - FaceTime links are a year late but will still be useful. I trust FaceTime more than Zoom and with SharePlay (what a great name!) I think it’ll have most of the features I actually use. I’m glad they’ve given us a grid view for everyone more comfortable with that than floating attendees. And it only took 11 years for Steve Jobs’ claim that FaceTime would be open source and available to third parties to come to fruition.

SharePlay - I know that my primary use case for this feature will be tech support for friends and family, but I’m still excited about it. Rather than hoping for each app to develop its own shared experiences, they’ll be able to tap into SharePlay, which will hopefully mean it’ll appear in more places even faster.

Maps - I gasped when they showed off the enhanced map view. It’s so beautiful! I’m sure it’ll take years for that view to come to the cities that I live in, but I can’t wait!

Siri - While not the 2.0 revision Siri could use, on-device command recognition will go a long way in improving everyone’s day-to-day experience with it. Not to mention it also eliminates a huge portion of privacy concern. It took too long to return (remember when Siri could do basic commands like play and pause without an internet connection?). Still, I’m so glad that it has. Also, Siri on third-party devices! Who would have guessed?!

iCloud+ - I’m a guy who likes cohesion, so I’m happy to see Apple sync things up with iCloud’s naming. There’s now iCloud (the free version) and iCloud+ (the paid version), which adds interesting and valuable tools like email hiding, and a don’t-call-it-a-VPN.

Weather - The Dark Sky acquisition looks like it has paid off. I don’t need a ton out of a weather app, and Dark Sky was already my go-to. It looks like I’ll be able to get rid of a few extra apps now that weather maps and more alerts have been baked into the system app. Too bad it didn’t make the jump to iPad.

Health - I’ll have to dig more into this since the presentation kind of went over my head. But I’m happy to see the health sharing, and any improvements they make in this space are great to see!

Focus & Do Not Disturb - We’ll see how they turn out in practice, but these are kind of sleeper features for me. They’ll probably be great so long as they don’t require too much fiddling from the user.

watchOS - There wasn’t a whole lot here that caught my eye. Improvements to messaging and music will be nice, of course, but the focus on Photos feels like a miss. Maybe I’m not the target audience, but I don’t find myself browsing my photos on my watch, like, ever. I am, however, interested to see how the always-on display enhancements pan out. It sounds like third parties will also be able to integrate it, which will be a nice upgrade for my Series 5 watch. Right now, the always-on display is frustrating in anything but the main watch face and workouts, to be honest.

iPadOS - We were hoping for a whizzbang overhaul for iPad that didn’t quite materialize, but we got enough to satiate some appetites!

• Multitasking - By adding the App Library to the Dock and more discoverable multitasking options, I think Apple has addressed many of the main concerns about usability that we had going into WWDC. Plus, we can finally actually operate on Split View apps within the App Switcher! I’d still like to see a more versatile windowing system, but I’m happy to give them the benefit of the doubt until I try out the improvements myself.
• Shelf - Can we all give a hearty “Cheers!” to Federico Viticci on the introduction of a “Shelf” in iPadOS?
• Widgets - To no one’s surprise, widgets on the Home Screen arrived on the iPad. Though I applaud it, I have to say that the Home Screen looks a little spaced out and barren without the Today view.
• Keyboard Improvements - Apps like Things revolutionized app navigation using only a keyboard on the iPad. It looks like Apple is pushing for more apps to take a stab at this kind of navigation. Furthermore, keyboard shortcuts are getting a considerable upgrade alongside the introduction of a menu bar-like command browser. Two thumbs up from me!

macOS - macOS 12 Monterey looks gorgeous with its new purple wallpaper. It gains most of the features already covered above, but there are still a few breadwinners.

• Universal Control - This feature stole the show for me. I can’t wait to try it out and move seamlessly between my mac and iPad. I hardly ever use Sidecar, but I do jump into the iPad for tasks for which it’s better. Being able to do that without changing input devices will be awesome. I’m floored at how Apple has pulled off dragging content so effortlessly between devices. It’s like AirDrop on steroids!
• Shortcuts - Horray! We can finally create and manage Shortcuts across all of Apple’s most important platforms. As someone who has a vast Shortcuts library, and little interest in learning AppleScript or Automator, I’ll be glad to do less switching between devices to get things done. And it looks like Apple went all the way with integrations across the menu bar, finder, and more. Craig said, and I quote, “Shortcuts is the future of automation on the Mac,” so I’m predicting a long and happy life for Shortcuts.
• Safari - I’m a little wary about Safari’s redesign around tabs. Extensions that took just one click now look to be hidden behind a context menu, and I’m not sure I can get behind a non-centered and ever-moving Smart Search field. But we’ll see! I do think that the Safari window adapting to “become” the website is neat and makes it a more authentic window into the web.
• Notification Center & Widgets - One of my biggest wishes for macOS 12 was a rethink of the Notification Center and separation of widgets from that view. Unfortunately, nothing I’ve seen so far shows any meaningful improvements to interact with notifications there. There’s still hope throughout the beta period this summer, but I find that a bit concerning.

tvOS - Again not much to see here besides integrating with features introduced on other platforms (Spatial Audio, SharePlay, etc.). I, at least, expected a rebranding of tvOS into homeOS considering all the integration it does with HomePods and being a Home hub. There was even an entire home section of the keynote, but nary a mention of the OS that powers the home. I wasn’t even sure it got a version change at first.

For Developers

Despite the consumer-heavy keynote, this is a developer conference, after all. I had hoped that Apple would take this as an opportunity to address some of the criticism and bad blood between them and their developer community. It was probably too much to hope for, and I didn’t see a lot in the way of appeasing concerns like in-app purchases, payment commissions, or illogical app store guidelines.

Developers did get a new mechanism for reporting other apps that appear to break guidelines — looking at you, scam apps. But it is Apple’s job as the store curator to address those apps. So perhaps the reporting will result in meaningful change, but it shouldn’t be on developers to police each other. We’ll see.

On a more positive note, it looks to my untrained eye that developers got many APIs they’ve been hoping for, async and modal sheets as a couple of examples. I may not exactly know what those are, but developers in my timeline seem to be overall happy with their new tools. We didn’t get any significant shifts in the overall ecosystem — like with the new widgets last year — and I saw a few developers relieved that they can take more time for spit and polish than having to dive into something brand-new again.

Here are a few developer-focused announcements that stood out to me:

Xcode Cloud - I’m no developer (maybe someday!), but Xcode Cloud sure seems like it will be a boon for development teams. And if the apps are being built on Apple’s servers, it sounds like you’ll be able to develop even bigger apps on even less powerful local devices.

Building Apps on the iPad - While not the full Xcode that many were hoping for, by building app development into Swift Playgrounds Apple allows the iPad to take a big step. You can now develop apps for the platform on the platform itself! That you can upload apps directly to App Store Connect is excellent, and I think it will enable a wave of new developers who learn through Playgrounds.

Unified Graphics Platform - It sure seems like with Metal and the powerful chips that Apple is shipping in its mobile devices that games could make a splash. But I’m not holding my breath.

Interruption Level APIs - If developers implement these APIs for their notifications, it could make a big difference to cut down on noise. But that’s a big if. It seems unlikely that the biggest interruption offenders would feel any incentive to make their notifications less in your face. If users can change the priority level themselves, that will help but means more fiddling for the user.

Smarter Widgets - The Smart Stack of widgets introduced last year was cool, but I always found it disappointing since it would only contain apps when you placed the stack unless you manually added one later. Now it appears that apps using the Intents framework will automatically be added to a stack, based on how the user tends to use their apps. Neat!

Group Activities through SharePlay - I think Apple just recreated real-time Google Docs but for basically any app. Hopefully, it’s available outside of a FaceTime call. They’ve had a real-time collaboration for a while, but it’s never held a candle to what Google pulls off. We’ll see how this performs and the implementation. But it was a neat demo to share a canvas-like interface with others on a call.

---

It’s been eight hours since the keynote kicked off, and I’m still reeling from everything introduced. I look forward to digging into sessions throughout the week and lapping up all the discoveries that brave souls on the developer betas find. Again, congrats and thank you to all the folks at Apple who poured themselves into these releases.

WWDC

Becky Hansmeyer with a keen take on good leadership in response to some of the recent criticism directed toward Apple’s leadership team:

I’ve said this before, but I believe one of the single most important leadership qualities is humility, which by definition requires listening. If Apple executives listen to their employees and developers, decide their requests are not in line with the company’s core values, and say as much, that is one thing, because at least it’s honest. If, however, their requests or ideas align with the company’s values, but clash with its traditions or shareholder expectations (or simply aggravate the executives’ hubris) and they dig in their heels and tighten their grips, they are rightly deserving of criticism and, dare I say, scorn. And I think they’ll find, as the winds of change continue to blow, that they’ll eventually be caught in a storm they can’t escape, driven along on a course they did not chart for themselves.

Becky’s post is much more positive and optimistic than this quote would suggest, but it was too good a metaphor not to share. Her full post is short and should be required reading before WWDC.

(Via Daring Fireball)

Go to the linked site →

Linked

After a hiatus, 7 Things is back!

1. Marques Brownlee, as usual, does a great job explaining the features and design of Ford’s new electric F-150 Lightning. I’m not a truck guy either, but I grew up around them, and everything that I see here convinces me that it’s a truck made for truck people. Which, if we’re honest, are probably the people who would likely be the last holdouts for a non-gas-powered vehicle. The F-150 Lightning’s classic design, the better towing capability with instant torque, the bonkers number of full-powered outlets (handy at a job site), the way it can be a backup generator for your home, and the solid mileage all come together to make a compelling package. Furthermore, it’s priced competitively. I think, and I hope, that Ford will get a large wave of people into electric vehicles with the F-150 Lightning.
2. Neil Cybart lays out a strong case for how Apple earned its lead in Wearables and why it’s likely to continue.
3. Congrats to Matt Birchler on the first year of his YouTube channel. I’ve followed Matt for years, always looking forward to his watchOS reviews. But I really like the premise for his YouTube channel: A Better Computer. Every video promises to teach the viewer how to make their computer work better for them, big and small, no matter the device. It gives Matt a long, long runway to work with, and I’ve been super impressed by the quality right out of the gate. Check out his videos if you haven’t already.
4. I learned about the Starling Home Hub a while back for bringing Nest devices into HomeKit, but somehow their latest update allows you to AirPlay to Google’s speakers. I never thought that’d be possible. Even though I don’t have any Nest products, I’m still impressed!
5. Maybe I lack imagination, but I’m having trouble seeing where Twitter’s weather service will go or why someone would use it. It seems like its creators didn’t exactly know either, seeing the name has already changed from “Tomorrow” to “Currently” within days of launch. But it wouldn’t be a proper Twitter launch without some confusion.
6. As if the WWDC Keynote and State of the Union presentation weren’t enough for one day, Apple has also announced a special event for Spatial Audio tomorrow at 3 PM EST. It’s going to be an exciting day!
7. This one’s been waiting in the queue for a while, but Frederic Filloux had an interesting take on Apple balancing advanced technology with artisanship for their rumored car project. One quote jumped out at me:

One route that Apple can certainly revisit is the notion of the ownership of a car. The future driver of the AppleCar is not likely to own it. They might pay a monthly fee to Apple (after a substantial down payment) to receive servicing, software updates, and all the maintenance aspects (in 2040 there won’t be such a thing as a “battered AppleCar” as there are battered Corollas today). Apple might be the first carmaker to make that leap.

Rethinking ownership? Perhaps there’s no ownership at all.

7 Things