Linked List: September 14, 2016

Wednesday, 14 September 2016

Geekbench: Android Benchmarks vs. the A10 Fusion 

Looking at Geekbench’s results browser for Android devices, there are a handful of phones in shouting distance of the iPhone 7 for multi-core performance, but Apple’s A10 Fusion scores double on single-core.

Here are the top 5 Android phones, compared to the iPhone 7:

Device Single-Core Multi-Core
iPhone 7/7 Plus 3,450 5,630
Samsung Galaxy S7 1,806 5,213
Samsung Galaxy Note 7 1,786 5,228
Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge 1,744 5,203
Huawei P9 1,729 4,735
OnePlus 3 1,698 4,015

Apple’s A-series chip design team seems to be doing OK.

Update: The iPhone 7 scores better on both single- and multi-core than any most MacBook Airs ever made, and performs comparably to a 2013 MacBook Pro.

Update 2: Here’s another eye-opener. Matt Mariska tweets:

@gruber Grain of salt and all, but Geekbench has the iPhone 7 beating the $6,500 12-core Mac Pro in single-thread.

Apple Hires Former Time Warner Cable Executive Peter Stern 

Shalini Ramachandran, reporting for the WSJ:

Apple Inc. has hired former Time Warner Cable executive Peter Stern as a vice president working on cloud services, which includes the technology company’s subscription offerings such as Apple Music and a potential streaming television service.

Wonder what he’s going to be working on?

Digital Music News: ‘Samsung “Actively Exploring” Its Own Proprietary Headphone Jack’ 

Paul Resnikoff, writing for Digital Music News:

Samsung is now “actively and aggressively” exploring the possibility of releasing a proprietary headphone jack of its own, one that would be largely incompatible with newer iPhone devices, according to details shared confidentially with Digital Music News. Taking matters a step further, Samsung — alongside manufacturers developing Android products — could block Apple from licensing their proprietary jack, similar to the stance that Apple has adopted towards the Android community and other competitors.

This is the dumbest paragraph of news I’ve read in a long time. If Samsung comes out with its own proprietary audio jack, it’s by definition going to be completely incompatible with iPhones.

As for “block[ing] Apple from licensing their proprietary jack” — Apple wouldn’t use it even if Samsung paid them to.

When Bluetooth Audio Latency Matters 

Stephen Coyle:

This solution doesn’t work for sounds that start unpredictably, unfortunately. Taps on the screen happen when they happen, and all the system can do is rush the corresponding sounds to the Bluetooth receiver as quickly as possible. With most people used to streaming video and audio, a short delay after pressing play on a video feels acceptable, but when keyboard clicks don’t sync up with your fingers contacting the screen, it’s just unpleasant. […]

This latency is also a significant issue for an app I develop, Tapt. It’s a music game, which relies on tapping rhythms accurately in order to score points. When one needs to coordinate taps on the order of 100-200ms apart, latency is a problem (for any of my bluetooth gear anyway).

Apple has made this better with AirPods. Latency is noticeably better listening to say, keyboard clicks, than with my Beats Powerbeats 2. But it’s still noticeable.

Not sure what they were thinking with the one from 1973 — italics are essential.

iPhone 7 Plus: The Case for 56 mm 

I love this well-illustrated piece by Astramael, praising the idea of the secondary 56 mm equivalent telephoto lens on the 7 Plus:

If you get an iPhone 7 Plus, don’t just use the 2× mode when you want a little more zoom. Try it out for awhile. Think at fifty-six millimeters. Frame shots with it, isolate subjects with it, shoot parts of things rather than the whole thing, find interesting perspectives, fill the foreground, and so much more. I am excited because this puts a much more versatile photography tool into the hands of millions of people.

It might not be an ultra-fast, stabilized camera. It might not even be the same sensor. But it’s good enough to change the way you think about phone photography. Which is really the point, and almost certainly part of the reason Apple did it. You have to care about photography to build this feature.

56 mm really is a great focal distance. We’ll soon see a ton of shots in Apple’s “Shot With iPhone 7” campaign from the Plus’s 56 mm camera.

Also:

Despite “telephoto” sounding a bit funny for a lens that is only 56 mm. It is technically possible and perhaps not just marketing. If the sensor is 1/3-inch it likely contains a telephoto group, and the focal length of the lens is very likely longer than the lens’ physical length. Therefore it is, probably, actually a telephoto lens. The math doesn’t quite work out for it to be a 1/3-inch sensor without altering the optical center. So either there is a telephoto group, or the sensor is smaller than 1/3-inch.

Apple’s iPhone 7 30-Second Teaser 

Stark. I like it.

A Proposal for Screenshots in WatchOS 3 

In a footnote in my review today, I noted:

Pressing the crown and side button at the same time used to take a screenshot. In WatchOS 3, screenshots are not enabled by default. You can turn them on in the General section of the iPhone Apple Watch app. If you do, when you press both buttons to pause or resume a workout, it will work, but you’ll snap a screenshot too. Such is the price we pay for a device with only two buttons.

Here’s what I think Apple should do:

  1. Keep screenshots off by default. Most people don’t need or want them on the watch. Let the “press both buttons” command serve only for pausing and resuming workouts.

  2. When you enable screenshots in the iPhone Apple Watch app, reveal one more setting: “Take Screenshots During Workouts”. It should be off by default. This way, pressing both buttons would take a screenshot, except when you’re in an active workout. During a workout, pressing both buttons would pause/resume the workout. If you really want to take screenshots of the Workout app, you can turn on this extra setting.

It sounds a little complicated but keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of Apple Watch owners don’t want to take screenshots of their watch. They’ll never even know this is there. And most people who do want to take screenshots are advanced users who shouldn’t be confused by this.

Alternative: Make “Hey Siri, take a screenshot” work.

XKCD: A Timeline of Earth’s Average Temperature 

This is quite simply one of the best infographics I’ve ever seen. Also, it is terrifying.