Linked List: November 2, 2020

Monday, 2 November 2020

Kendall Kaut:

We’re three days from the election, and Joe Biden is going to win. I can hedge and say “Well, we could have a catastrophic polling error,” or “Trump is going to steal the election.” I don’t see either happening. Biden has led since March, and before most of you wake up on November 4th, Biden will be president-elect.

Trump faces too devastating a situation to win. If he wins, the entire polling industry, and quite possibly empiricism itself, would be in a nearly unfathomable crisis.

The easiest explanation is that Trump barely beat a terrible candidate in 2016. Trump is less popular than he was in 2016, Biden is more popular than Clinton, and the electorate is less hospitable to Trump than it was in 2016.

Kaut isn’t being glib or naive or hopeful. The above is just the start of a 5,000+ word piece backing it up. No election is ever in the bag. But the 2020 polls don’t look anything at all like the 2016 polls. I’m anxious, of course, because I care deeply, but I’m more excited than I am fearful.

If, like me, you find that cold hard facts calm your nerves, sit back with a nighttime beverage and dive into Kaut’s analysis.

‘Let’s Have a Shit, Shave, and Shower and Back at It.’ ★

Screenwriter Brian Koppelman, on working with Sean Connery:

We do what we can and then get the call. He’s coming at 9AM the next morning. So we do what you’d have done — we get a sliced fruit platter and put it out with some paper plates.

9AM on the damn button, a knock at the door. And there he is, wearing a hat similar to the one from The Untouchables. “I’m Sean. Throw a Sir on that and watch me walk out the door.”

“Yes, sir, I mean Mr. Connery, I mean … would you like some fruit? A slice of pineapple maybe?”

A smile comes to his face. He sees what this means to us. “I’d love some fruit. That’s kind of you.” He sits down and we go to work. He has incredibly smart notes on every page. These are not notes from our draft. They are from the prior draft. He’s telling us the movie he wants.

Should we get the studio or director on the speaker phone? “No. Youse’ll tell em what we’re gonna do.”

We spend the day working. He then says one of our favorite lines ever. “That’s about half the thing. Let’s have a shit, shave and shower and back at it.”

Be on time, be gracious, be prepared, do the work. That’s a recipe for success. And Koppelman’s story only gets better from there.

Here’s a another great Connery story, for good measure.

iOS 14.2 Includes New AR-Enhanced ‘People Detection’ Accessibility Feature ★

Steven Aquino, writing at Forbes:

The purpose of People Detection is to aid blind and low vision users in navigation; this type of application is particularly well-suited for the LiDAR sensor in iPhone 12 Pro. The goal is to help the visually impaired understand their surroundings — examples include knowing how many people there are in the checkout line at the grocery store, how close one is standing to the end of the platform at the subway station, and finding an empty seat at a table. Another use case is in this era of social distancing; the software can tell you if you’re within six feet of another person in order to maintain courtesy and safety.

Users can set a minimum distance for alerts — say, six feet for the aforementioned social distancing — as well as having an option to use haptic feedback to deliver those notifications. There also is audible feedback; if a person is wearing one AirPod, they will be notified when they’re in close proximity of a person or whatnot. People Detection is fully compatible with VoiceOver, Apple’s screen-reader technology.

What a magnificent feature this is. Aquino has some interesting thoughts on what would take it to the next level, too.

Raspberry Pi 400: $70 Desktop PC Built Into a Keyboard ★

This is brilliant:

Raspberry Pi has always been a PC company. Inspired by the home computers of the 1980s, our mission is to put affordable, high-performance, programmable computers into the hands of people all over the world. And inspired by these classic PCs, here is Raspberry Pi 400: a complete personal computer, built into a compact keyboard.

Apple TV Will Be on Xbox Starting November 10 ★

Will Tuttle, Xbox Wire:

Just as we’re bringing forward all the games that play on Xbox One today, we’re excited to announce that your favorite entertainment apps you enjoy today on Xbox One will be available on Xbox Series X and Series S. That means your favorite streaming apps like Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Spotify, YouTube, YouTube TV, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, NBC Peacock, Vudu, FandangoNow, Twitch, Sky Go, NOW TV, Sky Ticket and more, will be waiting for you when you boot your new Xbox console on November 10.

Some of those are just made-up names, right?

When our all-new Xbox family of consoles launch worldwide on November 10, you’ll have more than just the entertainment apps you enjoy today on Xbox One. We’re excited to share that the Apple TV app is coming to Xbox One and Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S on November 10.

The Apple TV app gives you access to thousands of shows and movies from one convenient location, allowing you to enjoy Apple TV+, Apple TV channels, brand-new and popular movies, and personalized entertainment recommendations.

Xbox users who aren’t already subscribed to Apple TV+ will be able to do so right on their Xbox. I’m curious if that’s a thing where Microsoft gets a cut of the subscription — I’m guessing no, because I can’t see why Netflix would go for that. If anyone knows, let me know.

AirPods Pro Service Program for Sound Issues ★

New from Apple:

Apple has determined that a small percentage of AirPods Pro may experience sound issues. Affected units were manufactured before October 2020. An affected AirPods Pro may exhibit one or more of the following behaviors:

Crackling or static sounds that increase in loud environments, with exercise or while talking on the phone

Active Noise Cancellation not working as expected, such as a loss of bass sound, or an increase in background sounds, such as street or airplane noise

Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider will service the affected AirPods Pro (left, right or both), free of charge.

I have a bunch of friends who’ve had these issues with their AirPods Pro, and I don’t have that many friends. It’s pretty common. (Also, a slew of reader emails about this.) The “before October 2020” makes it sound like Apple thinks it has the problem licked, though.

One More AR Easter Egg ★

Michael Potuck, 9to5Mac:

Just after officially announcing the November special event, the new Easter egg started showing up from iPhone and iPad when visiting the special events page here and tapping on the Apple logo of the event artwork at the top.

This time around Apple is including a much more subtle AR Easter egg that shows the Apple logo lying flat, starts glowing with a variety of colors, then rises up like it’s on the lid of a MacBook. Spotted by 9to5Mac reader Barja, if you rotate the AR Apple logo, or walk around to the back, you can see the event date 11.10.

That is a bit suggestive of a laptop opening.

One More Apple Event: Next Tuesday, 10 November ★

About as unsuggestive an invitation design as you could imagine. “One More Thing” could be anything, but of course, everyone assumes the highlight will be the first Macs with Apple Silicon chips — a fair assumption, given that Apple said at WWDC that they’d be launching by the end of the year, and there aren’t any other flagship products left to announce. This will likely also mark the launch of MacOS 11 Big Sur.

I say Apple Silicon Macs could be the “highlight” only because we could see something else, an opening act like what HomePod Mini was to the iPhones 12 last month. The way to think about these 2020 (and 2021?) streaming Apple Events is that they’re like episodes of a TV show, and the episodes consist of segments that can effectively be mixed and matched. Something like AirTags would make for a nice opener, even if AirTags aren’t really related to the Mac any more than HomePod Mini was related to iPhones.