Linked List: March 12, 2015

Thursday, 12 March 2015

Emotion as the Primary Selling Point 

Great piece by Neil Cybart at Above Avalon:

The contrast between the BuzzFeed and The Verge demo videos are noteworthy, demonstrating the much bigger trend in technology: personalization. While there is still demand for videos that go into a gadget’s specs, the momentum is clearly found with videos that simply discuss the emotion behind the product and if it is something worth people’s time to learn more about. Gadgets are becoming extensions of ourselves and that is only intensified with wearables. While some may be interested in the assumptions included in stated battery life claims, many more will be mesmerized by an animated Mickey Mouse watch face.

Incidentally, Apple has been placing emotion ahead of tech specs in its marketing campaigns for a long time. We saw this once again at Monday’s keynote where the takeaway message was to drum up interest in the Watch and not focus on specifications or even how the Digital Crown works. This makes the Apple online store that much more important as a source of information, in addition to brick-and-mortar retail establishments.

Rob Griffith’s All-in-One Apple Watch Spreadsheet 

I’m slightly baffled by the weight difference between Sport Band colors. Why is white so much heavier than black (47 vs. 37 grams)?

New Chromebook Pixels Use USB-C, Too 

Ed Baig, writing for USA Today:

Arguably the most significant difference compared with the first-generation Pixel is the addition of two compact USB Type-C ports, conveniently placed on each side of the machine. USB Type-C can handle power, data and video, all in one.

It does seem convenient to be able to power the device from either side. Every once in a while you wind up in a spot where it’d be more comfortable to plug the adapter in on the other side of the laptop.

The timing seems like it can’t be a coincidence. There must have been some sort of backchannel embargo, allowing Apple to announce the new MacBook as the first USB-C-equipped laptop.

As for Baig’s description of the new Pixels as being for “power users”, I think that’s off the mark. I think David Pierce, at Wired, has a more apt description of the target audience:

Google really still intends the Pixel for its hardest of hardcore fans: the people who live in Google products all day, or who develop apps for those products.

Apple Watch Glances and the Watch Face 

Pavan Rajam, on Ben Thompson’s confusion from Glances only being available from the “watch face”:

I think issue here is the term watch face. The traditional meaning of clock/watch face, per Wikipedia, “the part of an analog clock (or watch) that displays the time through the use of a fixed-numbered dial or dials and moving hands.” On the surface, this sounds analogous to the Apple Watch’s display.

Apple’s copy, on the other hand, seems to define watch face as the watch face UI in the Clock app, not the Watch’s display.

I think Rajam is correct. Something that occurred to me yesterday is that Glances only being available from here might also have something to do with the watch face UI not being scrollable. The elements are all fixed. That means when you swipe up on the touchscreen, it can only mean one thing: you want to see your Glances. If Glances were available system-wide, it could get all screwy with swipes that intended to scroll a list, or pan around on the home screen. The watch might well be too small physically to allow for “you have to swipe from the very edge of the display” distinctions like we have in iOS for Notification Center and Control Center.

Rajam:

If anything, this tells me that many of the interactions we take for granted on iOS won’t necessarily translate to the Watch. Pinch to zoom is one of these, Notification/Control Center is another.

Pinch-to-zoom is definitely out. Apple Watch is not multitouch.

Update: I don’t know why people are pushing back on this multitouch thing. It’s not multitouch. It’d just be a waste. The display is way too small for meaningful multitouch interaction — that’s why Apple added force touch and the digital crown.

From the Department of Jumping to Conclusions, Patent Edition 

Stephen Pulvirent, opining for Bloomberg Business:

Some people will think the gold is beautiful; the yellow doesn’t photograph well, but looks better in person. (I personally prefer the look of the fake gold on the new Macbook.) There’s also rose gold, and both make the watch much heavier and less practical for daily wear. Compared with the aluminum Apple Watch Sport, it feels like a brick. Sure, you’re not running a marathon with the thing, a la Christy Turlington, but you don’t want your wrist to tire before the battery.

Apple is careful to point out that the 18k gold used is a proprietary alloy that’s between two and four times harder than typical gold. According to a patent filed last June, this special gold is created by impregnating a gold matrix with ceramic particles for added toughness. In the same patent, Apple also alludes to future cases made of silver and platinum, so this might not be the only Apple Watch Edition we see.

Yes, Apple Watch Edition is made from a custom 18-karat gold alloy. Yes, Apple filed that patent last year. But it does not follow that the gold in Apple Watch Edition is the gold described in that patent. If you watch the “Gold film” on Apple’s Edition page, Jony Ive says, “It begins at the molecular level, where precise adjustments in the amount of silver, copper, and palladium in the alloy result in very specific hues of yellow and rose gold.” Those metals are the only ingredients Apple has talked about. Maybe there is ceramic mixed in there, too, but maybe not. We don’t know.

Apple, like all major tech companies, files patents on everything that they think is patentable, whether they plan to use it in actual products or not.

I’ve also seen comments from the peanut gallery alleging that Apple Watch Edition doesn’t contain much actual gold, based on this same patent filing and the typical peanut gallery conspiratorial fever dreams. If it’s heavier than the stainless steel models — and it is — that means it contains a significant amount of actual gold.

Details on USB-C 

Good piece by Seth Weintraub running down the details on USB-C. As for this question:

By next year, I would expect all new Macs to have USB Type C. I would expect Apple displays (if they keep doing displays) to be USB-Type C based. I would expect Lightning cables and most of the industry to move that direction too. The question in my mind is: Will Apple keep Lightning or are you looking at the next iPhone connector as well?

I think the answer is probably “No, Apple is not going to switch the iPhone and iPad to USB-C”. I think Lightning is a more elegant design, including being slightly thinner. And I think Apple likes having a proprietary port on iOS devices.

But, if they did move iOS devices to USB-C, then you could charge your iOS devices and MacBook with the same cable. And within a few years, all phones and tablets from all companies would charge using the same standard.

Khoi Vinh’s ‘How They Got There’ 

New book from Khoi Vinh:

Fourteen amazing interviews with designers of all stripes, each one full of brilliant insights into how great careers are made in digital media.

Read tales of hard work, odd coincidences, fortuitous timing, personal networks — and dumb luck.

Vinh set out to write the book he wished he’d had when he began his career, and he succeeded. I read an advance copy, and it’s good. Recommended for anyone working in design, and highly recommended for anyone starting a career in design.

Apple Stores as the New Mall Anchors 

Suzanne Kapner, reporting for the WSJ:

Apple draws so many shoppers that its stores single-handedly lift sales by 10% at the malls in which they operate, according to Green Street Advisors, a real-estate research firm. That gives Apple the clout to negotiate extremely low rents for itself relative to its sales, while creating upward pressure on prices paid by mall neighbors who might not benefit from the traffic.

In the past, malls typically operated according to a straightforward bargain. Department stores that anchored the ends of the malls either owned their own stores or paid almost nothing aside from fees to maintain common spaces in exchange for drawing much of the traffic, while specialty retailers in the smaller spaces between the anchors typically paid the bulk of a mall’s rent.

Apple has upended that model by using its bargaining power to pay no more than 2% of its sales a square foot in rent. That compares with a typical in-line tenant, which pays as much as 15%, according to industry executives.

The WSJ’s ‘People Familiar With the Matter’ 

Lorraine Luk and Daisuke Wakabayashi, reporting for the WSJ on February 17:

Apple Inc. has asked its suppliers in Asia to make a combined five million to six million units of its three Apple Watch models during the first quarter ahead of the product’s release in April, according to people familiar with the matter.

Half of the first-quarter production order is earmarked for the entry-level Apple Watch Sport model, while the mid-tier Apple Watch is expected to account for one-third of output, one of these people said.

Orders for Apple Watch Edition — the high-end model featuring 18-karat gold casing — are relatively small in the first quarter but Apple plans to start producing more than one million units per month in the second quarter, the person said.

This reads like utter nonsense in light of Apple Watch Edition’s now-announced pricing. A person “familiar with the matter” told them Apple expects 16 percent of Apple Watch sales to be Edition models? One out of every six is going to cost $10,000 or more, and will only be available at (quoting Tim Cook on stage this week) “select retail stores”?

Cook said at the end of Monday’s event, “There will be limited quantities of the Apple Watch Edition.” But someone “familiar with the matter” told the Journal three weeks prior to the event that Apple planned on producing one million Edition watches per month next quarter?

(Update: To put this in context, 1 million Edition watches sold per month would generate around $12 billion in monthly revenue, and about $36 billion in revenue per quarter. Their record-breaking most recent quarter included $75 billion in revenue total. The numbers from the WSJ’s “people familiar with the matter” would thus make Apple Watch Edition — just Edition — half the size of the entire company by revenue in its most recently completed quarter.)

I’d say Luk and Wakabayashi’s sources were more familiar with the view inside of their derrières than they were with Apple’s plans for Apple Watch.

Claim Chowder: The Verge on the Pricing of the New MacBook 

Like shooting fish in a barrel.