Linked List: January 25, 2018

Thursday, 25 January 2018

The Talk Show: ‘Arbiter of Finallys’ 

Special guest Rene Ritchie returns to the show to talk about HomePod, clickbait, the Spectre/Meltdown security exploits, and a look back at Apple’s 2017 in review.

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Joanna Stern’s Guide to iCloud Storage 

Speaking of iCloud storage limits, Joanna Stern’s column (and clever video) this week is devoted to iCloud’s storage limits:

Here’s the big catch, though: Apple offers only 5 gigabytes of free iCloud storage space. That’s like offering a Siberian tiger a Tic Tac for dinner. With the amount of photos and videos we take today, it’s not enough. For a company with about $270 billion in the bank, I’d expect it to at least match Google’s 15GB of free cloud storage — or beat it. Do I hear 20GB?

5 GB seems ridiculous when the company is selling $999 iPhones with 64 GB of storage.

Think about it. Everyone should back up their phones. The best way to back up your iPhone — and the way Apple wants you to do it — is through iCloud. But 5 GB isn’t enough for most people, so they get these warning messages, which sound scary and which they don’t understand.

FilmGrab: ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ 

Zoom this one to full-screen.

I sing the praises of The Empire Strikes Back frequently. It’s both one of my personal favorite films to watch, and, I think, one of the best films ever made. The music, the story, the pacing, the acting, the casting — there is so much to love about Empire. I sometimes forget just how beautiful a film it is. Most of these stills are just gorgeous.

(Thanks to DF reader Ben Johncock for the link.)

iCloud Messages Returns to iOS in First Beta of iOS 11.3 

Juli Clover, writing for MacRumors:

As of iOS 11.3, Messages in iCloud is back and is available for “testing and evaluation purposes,” marking the official return of the feature. According to Apple’s release notes, once iOS 11.3 beta 1 is installed, Messages will prompt users to turn on Messages in the Cloud when it is first launched.

Messages in the Cloud is automatically enabled for users who have two-factor authentication and iCloud Backup enabled, says Apple.

One of the advantages with Messages on iCloud is that, if you want to keep your old messages around, they won’t be taking up space on your devices, and they’ll only count once against your iCloud storage limit (as opposed to now, where old messages are stored in the backups of each device you use).

Google Adds Controls to Dial Back Ad Tracking 

Jon Krafcik, group product manager for data privacy and transparency at Google:

Let’s say you’ve walked through one too many puddles of icy slush this winter, and you finally need to replace your snow boots.

You visit Snow Boot Co.’s website, add a pair of boots to your shopping cart, but you don’t buy them because you want to keep looking around. The next time that you’re shopping online, Snow Boot Co. might show you ads that encourage you to come back to their site and buy those boots.

Reminder ads like these can be useful, but if you aren’t shopping for Snow Boot Co.’s boots anymore, then you don’t need a reminder about them. A new control within Ads Settings will enable you to mute Snow Boot Co.’s reminder ads. Today, we’re rolling out the ability to mute the reminder ads in apps and on websites that partner with us to show ads.

Krafcik can’t come out and say it, but the problem with ads that track you like this isn’t that they may not be useful, but that they’re creepy AF, as the kids would say. Exposing controls to mute them is better than nothing, but it’s sort of like being able to tell someone who is following you around to stop talking to you, but they’re still going to follow you around.

Farrago 1.0 

New app from Rogue Amoeba:

Farrago provides the best way to quickly play sound bites, audio effects, and music clips on your Mac. Podcasters can use Farrago to include musical accompaniment and sound effects during recording sessions, while theater techs can run the audio for live shows. Whether it’s providing quick access to a large library of sounds or running through a defined list of audio, Farrago is ready to assist!

Looks like a brilliant design — easy to understand, convenient to use, attractive — and it has one of the best intro videos I’ve ever seen. Even if you have no need for a soundboard app, it’s worth checking out for the video alone.

Three Short Films From Three Emerging LA Filmmakers 

James Hughes, in a feature for Apple Newsroom:

In Los Angeles on a Saturday morning in November, a crew of 10 students from Hollywood High School, helmed by 17-year-old director Celine Gimpirea, are transforming a corner of the Calvary Cemetery into a movie set. In The Box, a boy slips inside a cardboard box and finds himself transported to other realms. On this well-manicured, impossibly green lawn, among rows of flat, black granite grave-markers, are rows of flat, black camera cases holding DIT stations, iPads and MacBook Pros — the tools that will bring the story to life.

Gimpirea’s is one of three teams of filmmakers involved in a month-long filmmaking workshop connecting creative professionals with emerging talent. The teams worked with powerful tools from Apple, including the MacBook Pro, iMac and Final Cut Pro X, as well as the RED Raven camera for shooting, and worked alongside Apple Retail experts and industry pros. LA-based independent filmmaking collective We Make Movies provided post-production supervision to help the filmmakers realize their visions.

I’m blown away that Gimpirea is just 17 years old. It’s a really fun little film. The other two films — Krista Amigone’s The Dancer and the documentary La Buena Muerte — are good too. Apple’s involvement in this project is so very Apple.

(Also good to see: a byline credit on an Apple Newsroom feature. That’s new.)

One Hour With HomePod 

Madeline Buxton, writing for Refinery29 after getting an hour of hands-on time with HomePod:

Aesthetic, however, is only a very small part of the puzzle and one you’d expect Apple to excel at. Fortunately, HomePod also delivers where it counts: The sound. When I listened to the speaker next to Google Home Max, the latest Amazon Echo, and Sonos One, the vocals were consistently crisper and clearer on HomePod. The pluck of guitar strings pops, and bass notes have the robust thump-thump you want from them.

Interesting that Apple included Google Home Max in the comparisons. Back at WWDC in June, they only compared it against an Echo and a Sonos.

Regarding the limits of how HomePod works with multiple users:

Secondly, although everyone in your apartment will be able to use the speaker, only the person who sets up HomePod on their iCloud account will be able to send texts, set up reminders, and add notes via voice commands. Google Home and Amazon Echo, meanwhile, can recognize different voices and provide personalized content accordingly. (If you do set up personal notifications on HomePod, these will only be available when you are on the network, so you don’t need to worry about your texts being read aloud at home when you are at work. If you don’t want them read aloud when you’re home, you can go into your HomeKit settings and turn off the notifications.)

I hope (and would expect) that full support for multiple users is on the drawing board, but simply didn’t make the cut for 1.0.

CNN Is Closing Down Beme, Casey Neistat’s Video Company 

Steven Perlberg, reporting for BuzzFeed:

In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Neistat spoke candidly about his inability to figure out a viable strategy for “Beme News,” which CNN had intended to become a central part of its digital business. Instead, Neistat said he slowly, and frustratingly, distanced himself from his own company, retreating into what he knew best — producing videos for his personal YouTube channel.

“I couldn’t find answers. I would sort of disappear, and I would hide, and I would make YouTube videos for my channel because at least I would be able yield something,” Neistat said. “I don’t think I’m giving CNN what I want to give them, and I don’t think they’re getting value from me.”

That is one of the most honest answers to a difficult question that I’ve heard in a long time.