Linked List: April 6, 2020

Monday, 6 April 2020

Larry David, Master of His Quarantine ★

I’m trying to end each day here at DF on an upbeat note. This interview with Larry David by Maureen Dowd for The New York Times fits the bill nicely:

When I ask if he is hoarding anything, he is outraged. “Not a hoarder,” he said. “In fact, in a few months, if I walk into someone’s house and stumble onto 50 rolls of toilet paper in a closet somewhere, I will end the friendship. It’s tantamount to being a horse thief in the Old West.”

“I never could have lived in the Old West,” he added parenthetically. “I would have been completely paranoid about someone stealing my horse. No locks. You tie them to a post! How could you go into a saloon and enjoy yourself knowing your horse could get taken any moment? I would be so distracted. Constantly checking to see if he was still there.”

2020 iPad Pros Do Not Have U1 Ultra Wideband Chips ★

Joe Rossignol, MacRumors, “2020 iPad Pro May Not Have a U1 Ultra Wideband Chip After All”:

As a reminder, Apple’s tech specs for the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro list an Ultra Wideband chip for spatial awareness, but the chip is not mentioned in Apple’s tech specs for the new iPad Pro. Apple also did not mention the new iPad Pro featuring the U1 chip in its press release or in any other marketing materials for the device.

Beyond that, the directional AirDrop feature that the U1 chip enables on iPhone 11 models is not present on the new iPad Pro running iPadOS 13.4, nor is the Ultra Wideband toggle switch that Apple added to iPhones in iOS 13.3.1.

So the tech specs don’t mention it, Apple never mentioned it, and the U1-enabled features in iPhone 11 models aren’t there. And iFixit’s teardown found no hidden U1 chip.

There’s no reason to think the iPad Pros have a secret U1 chip other than this March 18 post at 9to5Mac that stated it does, “based on code from the latest iOS 13.4 build”. “Based on code” is a pretty dumb way to source this as true.

I confirmed with a little birdie who would certainly know the answer: there is no U1 chip in the new iPad Pro, and if there were one, Apple would have told us so.

Jake Tapper to Trump: ‘Mr. President, What’s the Plan?’ ★

Jake Tapper, closing his State of the Union show on CNN yesterday:

Mr. President, I know you, like millions of Americans, are eager to have the nation go back to some semblance of normal. One of the questions the American people need answered for that to happen responsibly: What’s the plan?

Queen Elizabeth: ‘We Will Be With Our Friends Again. We Will Be With Our Families Again. We Will Meet Again.’ ★

Remarkable address from Queen Elizabeth — well-written, well-delivered. Honest and truthful, yet hopeful. All the more powerful that it’s only her fourth formal address in 68 years.

Joanna Stern: ‘A MacBook Air Review at the Worst Possible Time’ ★

Joanna Stern, writing for The Wall Street Journal:

It’s hard to know if the satisfyingly bouncy yet quiet keys are fabulous by themselves, or just a welcome relief after years of the flat, loud yet delicate butterfly keys. You know what? I’m going to go with “fabulous.”

Since those butterfly keys began to show issues after a few months of use, I’d hesitated to declare everything fixed. I’m happy to report, however, that six months into using the 16-inch MacBook Pro, I’ve had no issues with the new keyboard. In fact, it now feels even more broken-in — versus, you know, just broken.

She makes a great point about laptop web cameras sucking — and how their suckiness has been brought to the forefront during our collective stay-at-home saga. Her video comparing webcam footage from a bunch of laptops — including a 2010 MacBook Pro, whose camera at times outperforms the new MacBook Air’s — is excellent. But I think the problem here is technically difficult — laptop lids are way thinner than phones and tablets, and that thinness severely limits camera sensor size. Everyone wants a better MacBook camera, but I suspect few would accept the tradeoff of a MacBook with a lid as thick as an iPad.

(Apple News link, for News+ subscribers who don’t have a standalone WSJ subscription.)

Ryne Hager, Writing at Android Police: ‘Do Yourself a Favor and Buy an iPad During Lockdown’ ★

Not the usual fare at Android Police. (I have never understood the name “Android Police”. What is that all about?) Feels like the inconvenient truth, though. There are flagship Android phones from several companies that are, undeniably, competitive with the iPhone. Tablets, not so much (other than at the low end of the market, with devices like Amazon’s Fire tablets). But what I’m most interested in isn’t what Hager likes about iPads, but what he doesn’t:

By far, the biggest advantage of having an iPad comes down to apps. iOS has more of them. It also has more exclusives, it usually gets apps for new services or games first, and apps for iPads often make better use of big-screen layouts than Android apps do. Even if you hate iOS and its weird dated home screen layout, awkwardly monolithic Settings app, arbitrary and draconian default app restrictions, and the lack of deep Google services integration, the apps kind of make up for it.

That’s a pretty interesting list. First, not one of them is hardware related. (He does mention subsequently that Samsung has tablets with AMOLED displays, but that’s tech spec gibberish — no one can argue that iPad displays aren’t best of breed at each price point). iPad hardware is undeniably great. Second, his software complaints don’t even include the multitasking UI complaints I’ve been preoccupied with. Instead his list is:

“Weird dated home screen layout”. Near universal agreement on this one. I don’t think Android shows the way forward here, at all, but the iOS home screen really is dated and limited. And it’s not even simple — it’s downright tricky and error prone to move apps around to rearrange them.
“Awkwardly monolithic Settings app”. This I don’t get. Yes, the iOS Settings app contains a lot of stuff. But it’s organized pretty well for the most part, and search helps quite a bit when looking for something deep. Ideally every single setting in Settings would be indexed for search, but I find the iOS Settings app easier to navigate logically than the Android Settings app on my Pixel. Regarding monolithism, I assume he’s referring to the fact that Apple’s built-in apps keep their settings in Settings, rather than in each app. At the outset of the App Store, Apple’s guidelines prescribed that all apps put their settings in the Settings app — an idea that was clear on day one wouldn’t scale.
“Arbitrary and draconian default app restrictions”. Nothing arbitrary about it, but yeah, that’s been a complaint ever since the App Store opened. According to Mark Gurman, though, Apple is considering changing this in iOS 14.
“Lack of deep Google services integrations”. From this side of the fence, that’s a feature, not a bug. Makes about as much sense to complain about this as it would to complain about the lack of iCloud integration on an Android phone, except for the fact that Google actually does offer a slew of iOS apps, whereas Apple’s offerings for Android are, uh, Apple Music. (Why no Apple TV? If they’re making Apple TV apps for TVs running Android why not make an Apple TV app for Android phones?)

(And, of course, the comments section on this post is a goldmine of hot takes.)

Hobby Lobby vs. Coronavirus, a Tale in Three Acts ★

Act 1: March 19. Hobby Lobby owner’s wife receives a message from god telling her their stores should remain open.

Act 2: April 1. Hobby Lobby re-opens dozens of stores in states with strict shelter-in-place orders.

Act 3: April 3. Hobby Lobby to furlough most of its employees, close most operations nationwide.

Bonus Post-Credit-Sequence Flashback: Hobby Lobby founder Steve Green spent millions of dollars on “Dead Sea Scrolls” that turned out to be fakes made from used shoe leather.

Free Epix Via Apple TV App Through May 2 ★

Good roundup of free trials and special offers for streaming video from Chance Miller at 9to5Mac:

A handful of streaming services are offering extended trials through the Apple TV app during the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, you can get extended one-month trials of Showtime and other services, as well as completely free access to Epix. […]

Epix is unique because it’s not offering an extended free trial right now, but rather completely free access for the next month. That means you can access all Epix content in the Apple TV app for free, without signing up for anything, until May 2.

Among Epix’s offerings: the entire library of James Bond films. Goldfinger awaits.

(Pretty cool offer from Epix, where you don’t even need to sign up. They’re simply looking to raise brand awareness and simultaneously do something good in the midst of this stay-at-home saga.)

Honor Blackman, Pussy Galore in ‘Goldfinger’, Dies at 94 ★

Simon Murphy and Andrew Pulver, writing for The Guardian:

Honor Blackman, the actor best-known for playing Bond girl Pussy Galore, has died aged 94.

The actor, who became a household name in the 1960s as Cathy Gale in The Avengers and enjoyed a career spanning eight decades, died of natural causes unrelated to coronavirus.

One of the greats. Feels like a good time to rewatch Goldfinger.