This post from Brent Simmons is short and sweet. Just three tips. The one about Callers I didn’t realize. I find it fascinating, I can stare at something for 8–12 hours a day for years and still not see something right in front of me.
I guess I’ll never learn it all. That’s the joy and the sadness of programming, I suppose.
Starbucks now supports Apple Pay in their mobile app.
A few people have wondered if this means Starbucks is going to start supporting Apple Pay in stores at the point-of-sale. I feel like it’ll be a while before they do this any time soon.
Right now, if you use Apple Pay how it is today, Starbucks can’t track you or what you’re buying; the merchant doesn’t get information about you through Apple Pay. Starbucks, along with pretty much every other merchant, loves data on their customers. It tells them what they’re buying, how often they buy, where they buy, and all kinds of other relevant information that they can analyze. This data, in turn, can be used to drive their business and push advertising tailored specifically to your buying habits.
It’s a gold mine.
Today, Starbucks has an effective and efficient system for ordering in-store. You get the convenience of the app plus free items for coming in and using it. On the flip side, Starbucks is able to track your purchases and collect data on you—and they get a beachhead to push marketing to you on your phone because their app has to be installed! Using Apple Pay inside the app to load up your gift card doesn’t hinder this system in any way—it makes it even easier for you to give Starbucks money, in fact.
Would Starbucks throw all this away for in-store Apple Pay? Not to mention all the purchased scanning equipment at their eleven thousand (!) locations? I doubt it.
Now, what if you could use Apple Pay with gift cards, in addition to credit cards, at the point-of-sale? That, to me, seems like the quickest way to get broader support with merchants and would put the final nail in the coffin of groups like MCX.
I’m not sure if Apple would mind losing some of the anonymity of Apple Pay. I also don’t know how much Apple is relying on merchant-based initiative to roll out Apple Pay. But, I’d be surprised if functionality for this isn’t already in the works (at least in some form) somewhere in Cuptertino.
In light of recent events publicized regarding the quality control issues reported with iOS 8 and Yosemite, it’s easy to forget just how much care and attention to detail exists in iOS and OS X. There are a lot of little touches and flourishes that help to create a much more pleasant experience while interacting with the operating system. Today, I’d like to focus in on a single, tiny aspect of the lock screen in iOS that makes me happy.
When iOS 7 was first released as a public beta in 2013, many were unhappy with the changes to the lock screen – specifically, the “Slide to Unlock” control that has been present since the original iPhone. Michael Heilemann (of Binary Bonsai fame) was a particularly vociferous critic of the new design. Even Gruber agreed. I also agreed with Heilemann’s critique then and agree with it, for the most part, today: there are problems.
(Note: I can’t find a copy of the original article because Binary Bonsai no longer has a blog. Sorry!)
Not much has changed to the lock screen since it was revealed (save for a direction-pointing chevron that gives the user a clue about swiping to the right and tiny Handoff icons). However, while using my phone today, I noticed a subtle touch that I think shows how detail-oriented Apple can be.
Here is how the Lock Screen appears on a device without Touch ID enabled for use to unlock the phone (or on a device without Touch ID).
You can see the familiar shimmer of the text. There is a transition from a charging indicator if your phone is plugged in to the date after a few seconds. Pretty basic stuff. Everyone should know this routine by now. Swipe the screen, enter your passcode (if you have one), and you’re in.
Now, if you have Touch ID enabled, you’ll see something slightly different. It’s not a big difference from before, but it does help, in my opinion, reinforce the idea that you are using your fingerprint to unlock the device instead of the normal interaction mode of swiping and putting in a passcode. Here is what you’ll see with Touch ID enabled:
If you watch the animation from the start, you’ll see that the screen first appears with no “Slide to Unlock” displayed; that text doesn’t display until after a few seconds. The visual identity of the page is changed considerably by removing the shimmering text. So much so, that for me I know to use my fingerprint versus swiping to the right in a split second just by looking at the screen when it first appears. Muscle memory? Perhaps. After a few seconds, the text is back—more than likely to check in and make sure you do actually know how to unlock the device. To do that, it provides the familiar interaction everyone has been using since 2007.
Is this a huge difference? No. It’s subtle and thoughtful. Those two words describe the Apple I used to know and love. And, despite what others might be saying, those two words describe the Apple of today, as well. So, while there are people who cry out the “End of Apple” and who think we’re headed off a Copland-esque cliff, I see things like this and realize we’ll be all right after all.
This report by Mike Walkley at Canaccord Genuity shows that Apple captured 93% of mobile profits for the fourth quarter in 2014.
I’m honestly not sure why it’s not 91% because Samsung came in at 9% and Microsoft was at -2%. Everyone else was at 0%. I understand the math (93 + 9 + -2 = 100), but I would think Microsoft’s negative percentage would be 0% when calculating the overall share.
What do I know though?
Now, if only Samsung could figure out how to copy Apple’s profits as well as they copy their devices…
Swift 1.2 (and Xcode 6.3 beta) is out. You might’ve noticed the code posted on this site is currently Objective-C only. I’m still learning Swift. Bear with me.
I think it’s pretty obvious, however comfortable I am with Objective-C, where we’re heading though. There is some serious effort being put into Swift at Apple HQ. You’d have to be blind not to see.
UPDATE: It looks like the iOS 8.3 beta came along for the ride today as well.