Linked List: September 28, 2017

Thursday, 28 September 2017

Trump’s FCC Commissioner Calls on Apple to ‘Activate’ iPhone FM Antennas That No Longer Exist ★

FCC statement (PDF):

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai released the following statement today calling on Apple to activate the FM chips that are in iPhones to promote public safety: In recent years, I have repeatedly called on the wireless industry to activate the FM chips that are already installed in almost all smartphones sold in the United States. And I’ve specifically pointed out the public safety benefits of doing so. In fact, in my first public speech after I became Chairman, I observed that ‘you could make a case for activating chips on public safety groundsalone.’ When wireless networks go down during a natural disaster, smartphones with activated FM chips can allow Americans to get vital access to life-saving information. I applaud those companies that have done the right thing by activating the FM chips in their phones.

Apple is the one major phone manufacturer that has resisted doing so. But I hope the company will reconsider its position, given the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. That’s why I am asking Apple to activate the FM chips that are in its iPhones. It is time for Apple to step up to the plate and put the safety of the American people first. As the Sun Sentinel of South Florida put it, ‘Do the right thing, Mr. Cook. Flip the switch. Lives depend on it.’”

The Sun Sentinal comment comes from this well-intentioned but deeply misinformed editorial:

When Hurricane Irma wiped out power and cell phone service, a hidden feature in our smartphones could have helped Floridians stay informed. […]

Smartphones contain an inner switch that lets them receive over-the-air analog signals from local radio stations. In other countries, including Cuba, manufacturers are required to flip the switch on. But in this country, Apple rules. And it prefers to sell the iPhone with the FM radio button switched off.

The idea being that Apple (and other companies) refuse to “flip the switch” because FM radio is free so they want everyone to use streaming services that cost money.

But there is no such switch. In a statement to MacRumors, an Apple spokesperson said the following:

Apple cares deeply about the safety of our users, especially during times of crisis and that’s why we have engineered modern safety solutions into our products. Users can dial emergency services and access Medical ID card information directly from the Lock Screen, and we enable government emergency notifications, ranging from Weather Advisories to AMBER alerts. iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 models do not have FM radio chips in them nor do they have antennas designed to support FM signals, so it is not possible to enable FM reception in these products.

That’s unequivocal, but leaves open the question about older iPhones. I’ve dug around, and what I’ve been told is that there is an FM radio chip in older iPhones, but it’s not connected, and there’s no antenna designed for FM radio. The chip is just part of a commodity component part, and Apple only connected the parts of the chip that the iPhones were designed to use. No iPhone was ever designed to be an FM radio, and there is no “switch” that can be “flipped” — nor software update that could be issued — that could turn them into one. It’s a complete technical misconception.

What’s absurd is that the FCC commissioner would take his understanding of the iPhone’s technical capabilities from a newspaper editorial rather than from Apple’s own FCC regulatory filings, which I’m pretty sure would show that they’re not capable of acting as FM radios.

Furthermore, I’m sure the timing of Pai’s “go blame Apple” letter has nothing to do with yesterday’s vociferous criticism of the FCC’s handling of the aftermaths of hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria.

WebKit: ‘Designing Websites for iPhone X’ ★

Nice piece by Timothy Horton writing for the WebKit blog on how websites can properly deal with the notch and “safe areas” on the iPhone X.

This is one reason why Apple considers it a strategic advantage not to permit third-party web rendering engines on iOS (in addition to maintaining control over the security and battery life aspects): on day one, every web view in iOS will support these CSS extensions, because they all use WebKit.

In the hypothetical world where Chrome for iOS was allowed to ship using Google’s own Blink rendering engine, Apple would be at Google’s mercy to support these features for Chrome users. I bet the Chrome team would adopt them quickly, but they might not be ready on day one, because Apple wouldn’t have given Google advance notice of the notch. And Apple simply wouldn’t want to cede that control.

The Case for Apple to Finally Just Make a TV ★

Nilay Patel:

One of my biggest issues with the new Apple TV 4K is that it doesn’t automatically switch the mode your TV is in to match the content. It’s one of the biggest and longest-standing issues in the living room: you want to run the TV display at a refresh rate of 24Hz when you watch 24fps movies, but animating a user interface at 24Hz looks like garbage. Apple and others deal with this issue by running everything at 60Hz, but that creates visual issues for 24fps movies — kind of silly because you buy all this stuff to watch movies, not menu animations. There are endless forum threads about adjusting TV settings to handle the motion problems that come with playing 24fps video at 60Hz.

At the same time, Apple recently introduced the ProMotion display on the iPad Pro, which dynamically varies the refresh rate of the LCD panel to match the content being displayed. When you watch a movie, it slows down to 24Hz to match the 24fps frame rate of most movies, and when you’re scrolling around a web page or playing a game, it can ramp up to 120Hz for maximum smoothness.

So, what if Apple made a TV with ProMotion that dynamically adjusted the refresh rate for the content being displayed, just like the iPad Pro? It would run at 120Hz on the homescreen and in games, slow down to 24Hz to display movies and TV perfectly, and ramp up again when you hit the home or Siri button to bring up the interface again. And live sports apps like NFL Sunday Ticket and MLB At Bat could run at 60Hz for smoother motion — the Xbox One Sunday Ticket app already runs at 60Hz.

Like Patel, I really don’t expect Apple to make a TV, but I sure wish they would, and he really makes a great case here. Especially the fact that previously, the cable box was king, but today, there’s a sizable (and growing) market of cord-cutters who just want to use streaming apps.

“Apple should make a cell phone running a stripped-down version of OS X” was a longstanding pipe dream, too.

1992: ‘The Executive Computer’ ★

Peter H. Lewis, writing for The New York Times back in July 1992 (via Darshan Shankar):

Sometime around the middle of this decade — no one is sure exactly when — executives on the go will begin carrying pocket-sized digital communicating devices. And although nobody is exactly sure what features these personal information gizmos will have, what they will cost, what they will look like or what they will be called, hundreds of computer industry officials and investors at the Mobile ‘92 conference here last week agreed that the devices could become the foundation of the next great fortunes to be made in the personal computer business. […]

How rich is this lode? At one end of the spectrum is John Sculley, the chief executive of Apple Computer Inc., who says these personal communicators could be “the mother of all markets.”

At the other end is Andrew Grove, the chairman of the Intel Corporation, the huge chip maker based in Santa Clara, Calif. He says the idea of a wireless personal communicator in every pocket is “a pipe dream driven by greed.”

Chris Espinosa put it well: “For everybody who ever said that Sculley was out of touch, read this. He was right about it being the mother of all markets.”

The fact that Intel pooh-poohed it is telling too.

These devices are expected to combine the best features of personal computers, facsimile machines, computer networks, pagers, personal secretaries, appointment books, address books and even paperback books and pocket CD players — all in a hand-held box operated by pen, or even voice commands.

Stuck in traffic on a business trip, an executive carrying a personal communicator could send and receive electronic mail and facsimile messages from anywhere in the country. She could also call up a local map on a 3-inch by 5-inch screen, draw a line between her current position (confirmed by satellite positioning signals) and her intended destination, and the device would give her specific driving instructions (as well as real-time warnings about traffic jams or accidents). Certainly, these are just predictions for now, but they sure are fun to think about.

Remarkably prescient list of features. The big mistake is listing “networks” as one feature among many. In 1992 it wasn’t clear yet that the internet would become the one true network, connecting anyone and everyone. The single biggest problem with the Newton is that it launched before the advent of Wi-Fi or cellular data networking.

Or perhaps the bigger mistake is assuming these would be devices for elite “executives”, rather than being accessible, affordable, democratizing devices for everyone.