Linked List: April 29, 2020

Wednesday, 29 April 2020

Another iOS 13.5 Beta Tweak: An Option to Disable ‘Automatic Prominence’ for the Current Speaker’s Tile in Group FaceTime ★

Dan Moren, writing at Six Colors:

Secondly, Apple is adding a toggle in iOS 13.5 allowing you to disable the “enlarge the face of the speaker” feature in Group FaceTime calls, which comes as a great relief to anybody who has used, and potentially become nauseated by, this feature. However, it’s not disabled by default (boo), so you’re still going to have to walk all your less tech-savvy relatives through how to turn this off.

This feature sounds clever and makes for a fun demo, but methinks a lot of folks at Apple (executives included) are using group FaceTime chats more than ever before lately, and have realized that in practice, especially in larger groups, it’s not a good experience.

New iOS 13.5 Beta Speeds Up Unlocking With Passcode When Wearing a Mask ★

Juli Clover, reporting for MacRumors:

In the iOS 13.5 beta, released this morning, Apple has streamlined the speed with which the passcode pops up when a person wearing a mask is detected, making it easier to get into an iPhone with a passcode when Face ID fails.

Speedier access to the passcode interface is noticeable when you swipe upwards on the Home screen when unlocking the iPhone, as this action now immediately brings up the passcode interface if your face is covered by a mask. Previously, the iPhone would attempt to initiate Face ID first, creating a few seconds of delay before the passcode interface was shown. The new, speedier passcode entry method makes it quicker to get into an iPhone.

I think it is still trying Face ID first, but if it looks like you’re wearing a face mask, it gives up and goes straight to the passphrase screen. The difference is that until now, it would keep trying Face ID for a few extra seconds.

Update: iOS 13.5 is clearly going to make this better by just skipping right to the passphrase screen, but it turns out you can jump to that screen immediately in the current version of iOS just by tapping the “Face ID” text label in the center of the screen. I had no idea this text acted like a button, and never would have guessed that it did. If only there were some way that on-screen elements that act like buttons could be made to look like buttons...

Android Central: ‘The Cheapest iPhone Has a More Powerful Processor Than the Most Expensive Android Phone’ ★

Jerry Hildenbrand, writing at Android Central:

I expect that some people are going to tell me about single thread versus multi-threaded performance and how the A13 GPU isn’t that great or how iPhones have much lower resolution screens so the chips don’t have to work as hard. All this is true, but another thing is true: the A13 is a stronger chip than the Snapdragon 865 for daily use in every category — we’ve seen this applied in real life in the iPhone 11 already. The only area it misses out is 5G, and that’s because Apple just doesn’t care about 5G yet. (The rumored iPhone 12 will almost certainly have a Qualcomm 5G chipset inside, for what it’s worth.)

Apple’s chip lead over Qualcomm has, if anything, widened, not narrowed. Not only do Apple’s high end phones far outperform Android flagships, now even Apple’s $400 iPhone SE does. This is a remarkable state of affairs, and a deeply inconvenient truth for Android fans. Geekbench pegs the A13 at about 1.5× faster than the Snapdragon 865, and about 1.8× faster than the Snapdragon 855 that powers a ton of premium Android phones still on the market, including Google’s Pixel 4.

I mention this state of affairs periodically, and when I do, I emphasize that CPU performance isn’t everything. For most people, it shouldn’t be the main thing. Everyone wants a phone that’s fast, very few actually need a phone that is the fastest. High-end Android phones are fast. So, you know, make your choice based on all the other differences between the two platforms — which differences are, I think clearly, more important than CPU performance.

If the tables were turned, and it were Qualcomm‘s chips that were faster, year after year, and Apple whose chips were slower, we’d never hear the end of it in tech publications. But as it stands, it’s an inconvenient truth that isn’t unremarked upon, but is definitely under-remarked upon.

David Letterman on Mike Pence Not Wearing Mask at Mayo Clinic ★

The Hollywood Reporter:

Letterman, who noted the wife of his former musical director Paul Shaffer was hospitalized with COVID-19, lambasted Pence for the move.

“Now if you go to the Mayo Clinic because you have COVID-19, you really have it,” Letterman said. “[Pence] takes time off from his gig as a mannequin, and he’s walking around without a mask taunting these poor people who are bedridden and wearing a mask. To me, that is just taunting people who are ill, to see that guy walking around in his $40 suit walking around in the Mayo Clinic without a mask.”

Letterman joked that he had intel that Trump would not wear a mask because his aides couldn’t figure out how to attach it to his hair.

Man, if only Letterman still had a show. He was doing episodes of his late night talk show from unusual locations long before now, when all the late night talk shows have to be shot from unusual locations.