Moaning Welsh Guy

A blog where I can moan and share my thoughts on topics that interst me. Mostly technology and bit of gaming. Follow me on twitter @mwelshguy

[moaningwelshguy]

From Bloomberg:

The Seattle-based Web retailer sent an e-mail to its marketplace sellers that it will stop selling Apple TV and Google’s Chromecast. No new listings for the products will be allowed and posting of existing inventory will be removed Oct. 29, Amazon said. Amazon’s streaming service, called Prime Video, doesn’t run easily on its rival’s hardware.

"Over the last three years, Prime Video has become an important part of Prime," Amazon said. "It’s important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion."

An interesting move from Amazon. I understand why Amazon would want to push for customers to use its own service, since users have to sign up for $99/year. However, I don't fully understand the logic; the new Apple TV, that is set to launch sometime this month, has an SDK meaning Amazon has the ability to make an app that will bring support for Prime Video to Apple TV, which has not been possible up until now.

It's possible Amazon has objections to Apple's model such as the possibility that they may have to give 30% of the revenue they make to Apple from any customers signing up through the app; something Netflix has just started doing in their iPad app 1. However, I would have thought this would have been outweighed by the potential of increasing Amazon's base.

To me one of the biggest selling points of the new Apple TV is that streaming services and other services 2 would no longer need to make deals with Apple to make their content available on the Apple TV. But it appears, for now at least, Amazon won't be utilising the SDK to bring their video platform to Apple TV, which is something I would like to see them do.

While I can also understand Amazon's desire to sell more of its own devices like the Fire TV, it ultimately makes more of its revenue from being a retailer and Prime subscriptions. Not selling Apple TVs and other streaming devices I can understand, in the same way you don't see Apple selling Microsoft's Service. However, based on today's news it's easy to assume Amazon won't be making a Prime Video app for the new Apple TV and that, to me, is illogical.

Up until recently Netflix required you to go to their website to sign up for the service as a way of preventing Apple from taking 30% of the money. I believe Amazon does something similar with the Prime Video streaming app for iOS. ↩︎

*cough* BBC iPlayer *cough* ↩︎

[moaningwelshguy]

From Jason Snell's review of El Capitan for Macworld:

The days of dramatic operating-system updates are over. El Capitan is as solid as the giant granite monolith that towers over Yosemite Valley. Upgrade, and get an improved Mac. It’s really that simple.

I'm glad that El Capitan isn't a gargantuan update like Yosemite was. I'm hoping not to have to deal with wifi connection issues for the first few months after updating. So hopefully can just enjoy the new features when El Capitan is unleashed into the world later today.

[moaningwelshguy]

From Apple’s press release:

Apple today announced it has sold more than 13 million new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus models, a new record, just three days after launch… “Sales for iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus have been phenomenal, blowing past any previous first weekend sales results in Apple’s history,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Customers’ feedback is incredible and they are loving 3D Touch and Live Photos, and we can’t wait to bring iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus to customers in even more countries on October 9.”

Another record year. As John Gruber notes on Daring Fireball, Apple sold 10 million last year so 3 million more is quite the increase. I suspect the increase in launch weekend sales is due to China being in the first wave of countries in which the iPhone 6s was released.

[moaningwelshguy]

Sleep++ Review - Sleep Tracking Comes to the Apple Watch

When Apple announced Apple Watch back in September of last year, one of the biggest questions was battery life. The amount of time you could leave between charges was a hot topic of discussion. When it was revealed that Apple Watch would require charging at night it was assumed that sleep tracking would not be possible with the Apple Watch. This view was further enforced by there being no built in functionality allowing you to track your sleep with Apple Watch 1 and developers didn’t have access to the data captured by the sensors in the watch so they couldn’t make an app for sleep tracking.

With the release of watchOS 2 Apple has dramatically improved the capabilities of 3rd party watch apps. Developers now have access to data from the accelerometer and heart rate sensor, as well as other hardware. This has allowed a new class of watch apps to be produced by developers that simply weren’t possible with the original version of WatchKit. One of those apps is Sleep++ by developer David Smith

Sleep++ is a simple sleep tracking app that leverages the data available from Apple Watch sensors to measure how long you sleep, the amount of restless sleep you have and thus the quality of your sleep. It’s easy to start using the app. After you’ve installed it, the iPhone tells you how to start tracking your sleep in 3 simple steps:

Wear the Apple Watch while you sleep

Tell Sleep++ when you start sleeping

Tell Sleep++ when you finish sleeping

The first screen you see upon opening Sleep++ on iPhone for the first time (left) and how sleep recordings look on the iPhone (right)

To tell Sleep++ when you start sleeping you simply press the big (and only) button which says “Start Sleeping” in the Apple Watch app and when you’re done you press the “Stop Sleeping” button. Once you’ve hit the stop sleeping button, Sleep++ will analyse your sleep and let you know how restless you were. I find the restless analysis to be accurate. My restless scores have been pretty low and I feel like I’ve been sleeping well and feel refreshed when I wake up. I did run into an issue that resulted in the app telling me that I had 0 minutes of restless sleep. This appears to be an issue that some users have experienced 2, but this problem was easily resolved by restarting my iPhone.

Both the iPhone and watch app display records of your sleep and the app integrates with HealthKit allowing you to view the sleep data in the Health app. In addition, there is a complication that comes bundled with the app. At most sizes, the complication simply acts as a way to quickly open the app, which is nice since I find navigating the app screen on Apple Watch somewhat cumbersome, and at the largest size (available on the modular face) the complication also displays the length of time you slept for last.

Starting to record your sleep and a view of your sleep records (1 and 2). The Sleep++ complications on two different watch faces; Modular (3) and Utility (4)

There are some drawbacks to the apps simplicity. Right now you’re unable to edit the sleep entries so if you forget to let the app know you’ve woken up you can’t go back and change the finish time of your sleep, however the developer has said this will change in an update. While not being an issue for me, Sleep++, at the time of writing at least, doesn’t offer any way of making notes to go with your sleep such as if you changed your routine before you went to bed so you can see what causes changes in your sleep quality. But, I never bothered using these features in other sleep recording apps if they were available.

Despite these niggles, the biggest question if you use the app is: when do I charge my Apple Watch if I’m wearing it all day and night? Sleep++’s developer, David Smith, posted an article on how you can wear your Apple Watch 24/7. This is what he suggests:

The TL/DR is to charge your Apple Watch in the morning while you get ready for your day (take a shower, get dressed, etc) and then again in the evening while you get ready for bed (brush teeth, put on pajamas, etc). Then put your Apple Watch in Airplane Mode while you sleep.

I’ve been using this method for the past few days while testing the app and I’ve got to say it works pretty well. I’ve never run into a problem with the watch running out of battery and battery drain overnight is minimal with airplane mode on. In fact my watch battery probably goes into the red less now than it did when I charged it overnight 3.

Another advantage of sleeping with Apple Watch on your wrist is silent alarms. While Sleep++ doesn’t have any alarm functionality, it doesn’t need it since the built in alarms work just fine. It’s far nicer to be woken up by a vibration on your wrist than an alarm sound. Admittedly this probably won’t work for you if you’re a heavy sleeper, in which case you can simply leave the alarm sound on.

Sleep++ isn’t a featured-packed sleep tracker like some iPhone apps claim to be. But that’s okay because Sleep++ is focused on being a simple sleep tracker and in my opinion it excels at being that. I consider it to be vastly superior to any iPhone sleep tracker app I’ve tried. If you want a sleep tracker for Apple Watch you can’t go wrong with Sleep++.

You can download Sleep++ on the App Store for free with ads, which can be removed with an in-app purchase.

David Smith did suggest you could simply start an ‘other’ workout while wearing the watch to bed to track your sleep, however I don’t believe this is a great way of sleep tracking.  ↩

Apparently this is due to a bug in iOS concerning the sharing permissions of the motion data recorded by the watch.  ↩

I’d also recommend turning off ‘wake on wrist race’, not so much to save battery life, but to avoid your watch screen lighting up and grabbing your attention when you move your wrist.  ↩

[moaningwelshguy]

From Ars Technica:

...company representatives confirmed both the subscription requirement, and that the software would in some way enforce the lock-out on the iPad Pro. Since publication, the company gave us a clarification that while the licensing and subscription requirement is accurate, the user experience has not been finalized or publicly revealed, and that it is too early to say precisely what will happen, if anything, when users try to run the software on the iPad Pro.

This is an interesting development to me. I wonder if Microsoft Office will have more features on iPad Pro than the suite of apps on other iOS devices. If this is what Microsoft does, it could lead to more professional apps being developed and being sold at a sustainable price for the developers.

[moaningwelshguy]

DeskConnect have just updated their automation app Workflow. The update brings a plethora of improvements such as support for 3D Touch with the new iPhone 6s and support for new iOS 9 features such as iPad multitasking and search.

Here’s what DeskConnect say is new:

Search for and run workflows from Spotlight on your home screen in iOS 9.

Use Workflow alongside other apps on iPad with iOS 9’s new split-screen multitasking.

3D Touch adds a new dimension to your workflows. On iPhone 6s, press firmly on a workflow to take a peek, or on the Workflow app icon for quick shortcuts to your workflows.

Use Siri in iOS 9 to remind yourself to run workflows later (“Siri, remind me to run this workflow in 30 minutes”).

Workflow now runs natively on Apple Watch in watchOS 2.

Run workflows straight from your watch face with the new Workflow Complication.

Seven more actions are now supported directly from your watch.

I use Workflow almost everyday. It allows me to automate a lot of stuff to do with my blog such as converting combining screenshots for reviews and uploading those screenshots to Dropbox.

Workflow is a great app and is also on sale with 20% off. I highly recommend that you purchase it.

[moaningwelshguy]

My Favourite watchOS 2 Features

After a short delay, watchOS 2 was released to the public on Monday. Since there was no public beta and due to me not being a registered developer, the release of the update earlier this week was my first opportunity to try it. As other articles have already pointed out, watchOS 2 is not a big update like iOS 9. It’s more about refining the experience of using Apple Watch and completing the feature set that perhaps should have been there from the start. There are hints of features like time travel being present in watchOS 1 where the solar face would respond to your movement of the digital crown. Then there are the photo and time-lapse photos that were announced the same time as Apple Watch last September but only saw the light of day with watchOS 2. Regardless, since there are other websites that have written reviews and I haven’t had enough time to write one, I thought I’d simply discuss some of my favourite features and some of the ones that I think show a lot of potential, much like I did with iOS 9.

1: Native 3rd Party Apps

While we’ve had 3rd party apps since the launch of Apple Watch they didn’t provide the best experience, far from it in fact. They were often slow, would close for no reason, may not even open at all and you couldn’t even open them if you weren’t in range of your iPhone. This was all because the app logic ran on the phone and was then transmitted over to the watch. Luckily, Apple knew this wasn’t the best experience and in watchOS 2 the app logic now runs natively on the watch.

The movement of the app logic onto the watch also allows 3rd party apps to access the sensors in the watch such as the heart rate monitor and accelerometer as well as being able to take advantage of the Taptic Engine and Digital Crown. However, even if all the developer does is update their app to make it native I would be more than happy. The speed improvements alone is enough for me. It makes me want to use 3rd party apps whereas before I would get fed up of waiting and just pull out my phone.

I’m not normally one to use Reddit but I found a list on there compiling all of the native watch apps.

2: 3rd Party Complications

Somewhat related to the enhanced capabilities of 3rd party apps is the addition of 3rd party watch face complications (the little widgets on the watch face that display information). While I’ve only tested 2 of these ([Dark Sky][darksky-app] and [Sleep++][sleep-app]), I can already see their use. I prefer the way Dark Sky displays the weather both in the app and now in its complication over the built in weather app.

One of the big selling points of complications is that it instantly allows you to glance at the information that’s most important to you, even more so than glances do. But the other big selling point, to me at least, is that you can launch the corresponding app just by tapping the complication. So if I want to see more weather information from Dark Sky I can just tap the complication which is even quicker than opening the app through the honeycomb app screen or bringing up the glance, which would require me to swipe up from the bottom and then swipe through to the Dark Sky glance. This not only makes the watch face a place to see the information most important to you but it makes it a launcher for the apps you care about most as well. Now with the addition of 3rd party apps you’re not just stuck with launching Apple’s own apps through complications you can open 3rd party apps as well.

3: Photo Watch Faces

I’ll grant you that the addition of photo watch faces don’t offer much in terms of functionality compared to the other features I’ve already mentioned. However, Apple’s tagline for watchOS 2 is:

More faces and features for an even more personal experience.

Let’s not forget also that Apple Watch is Apple’s “most personal device yet”. One of the joys people get from using the watch is the ability to customise your watch to make it uniquely yours. Whether that’s changing the strap or the complications on your watch face. But what’s more uniquely yours than a photo of your loved ones?

4: Siri Improvements

Since Siri’s release back in October 2011, Apple have been improving slowly constantly whether that’s making her work faster (which she thankfully does now) or understanding you better (which she does a pretty decent job at as well) or simply doing more things. However, when Siri came to Apple Watch its functionality was diminished compared to that on an iPhone or iPad simply because the form factor of the watch is not ideal for everything Siri can do. Luckily Apple aims to remedy this by increasing Siri’s usefulness by making her even more versatile. Now you can ask Siri to open up a Glance, starting a workout, lookup a word in the dictionary and more.

Despite there being a plethora of input methods for interacting with Apple Watch, I would argue Siri is the most important. Sure you can tap and use digital crown to scroll etc. But using Siri is quicker (if she works). If you wanted to start a workout before, you would have to press the digital crown, tap the workout app icon, select the type of workout, set your goal and then press go. Now you can simply say, “Hey Siri, start a 30 minute outdoor run,” and you’re off. Interactions with the watch are designed to be quick and Siri helps make the Apple Watch just that by cutting out all of the tapping and scrolling required to get stuff done.

[moaningwelshguy]

iPhone 6s and 6s Plus Reviews Released

The embargo on reviews for the iPhone 6s has been lifted by Apple and several reviews have gone live. The consensus seems to be fairly positive.

The Loops’s Jim Dalrymple:

Quick Actions, 3D Touch, faster Touch ID, 4K video, better photos, Live Photos—these are all things that are going to make the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus even better for me as a user.

That’s what I expect from Apple—make the software and hardware fast and easy to use. Allow me to be efficient and get my work (or play) done quickly, and with an ease of use that they’ve become known for.

That’s what I expect and that’s what Apple delivered. In the time that I’ve been using the new iPhones, I haven’t found anything I didn’t like or that didn’t work as it should.

Matthew Panzarino writing for TechCrunch:

I have a theory, just between you and me, that the new iPhones we’ll be seeing from Apple are never going to go back to the ‘tick/tock’ cycle. Competition is too fierce, the scope of Apple’s other ambitions is ever increasing, and with chip design in-house and clearly firing on all cylinders, the company has the resources and tools to introduce the most rapid refinements to the iPhone than ever before.

We’ll see if that’s true next year. But for now, both the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are worth your attention and, if it’s in your budget, a purchase. The camera alone is worth the price of admission — it’s truly great — the glimpse into the future of three dimensional computing is just a bonus.

There were, however, some complaints about battery life from Joanna Stern writing for the Wall Street Journal:

Let’s get this out of the way first. The No. 1 thing people want in a smartphone is better battery life. And the iPhone 6s doesn’t deliver that.

And she wasn’t as convinced as Panzarino that the iPhone 6s was worth the upgrade:

If you have an iPhone 6, you won’t be overly jealous of those who get a 6s—maybe just a tad envious of those Live Photos. If your iPhone is more than two years old, this is the phone to get. Just make sure to pay Apple’s ransom for the 64GB version.

The story of the iPhone 6s is the same as the 5s, or the 4s before it. It is a slightly better iPhone—that must be what the S stands for. And like its “S” predecessors, it doesn’t address all complaints. That’s what the iPhone 7 is for—right, Apple?

[moaningwelshguy]

iOS Adoption Hits 50% After 5 Days

From an Apple press release yesterday:

Apple also announced the fastest iOS adoption ever, with more than 50 percent of devices already using iOS 9.

That escalated quickly. After reports on Thursday that the adoption rate of iOS 9 was roughly the same as iOS 8, iOS 9 adoption has skyrocketed. It appears the effort Apple went to by making the download of iOS 9 smaller than iOS 8 didn’t go to waste.

[moaningwelshguy]

My Favourite iOS 9 Features

After 3 months of beta testing, Apple released iOS 9 into the world on Wednesday. I won’t be reviewing iOS 9 in depth since I don’t think I’m cut out to do something like that and I haven’t been testing iOS 9 extensively like others. Besides there are some great iOS 9 reviews out there such as the one from iMore and from Macstories, which by the way I don’t think is too long. So instead of a big review I thought’d I’d discuss some of my favourite iOS 9 features.

1: iPad Multitasking

The iPad received a lot of with iOS 9. It’s probably the most iPad-centric iPad update since iOS 3.2, the version of iOS that was made specifically for iPad bringing features such as landscape orientation for the home screen and adding up to 6 apps to the dock. The biggest iPad based new feature though is multitasking.

Now the iPad has had multitasking in the form of background activity for quite a while now, but since its inception a core principal of the iPad was that there would only ever be one active app. That all changes with iOS 9. You can now overlay the main (primary) app with a (secondary) app with what Apple calls Slideover 1. The iPad Air 2, iPad mini 4 and iPad Pro also have the capability to run two apps simultaneously in a split-screen arrangement. In addition to these, you can even use picture in picture with a video so that it can continue playing while you use other apps on your iPad.

Using two apps simultaneously: Safari and Twitterrific (left) and Captain America The Winter Soldier Playing in picture-in-picture

While these features have been available on other platforms for quite some time, it’s good to see these features make their way to iOS. These new multitasking features are a great boon for productivity and just make the iPad more convenient to use. I’ve loved using OneNote alongisde Safari to take notes from a webpage; being able to quickly browse Twitter while catching up with a show I’ve missed on BBC iPlayer has also been great.

The addition of split-screen multitasking has made the iPad experience much more fluid. I no longer need to leave safari to quickly message my friend, I can simply use SlideOver to open the Messages app temporarily. My only hope going into the future is that almost every app supports multitasking. Obviously, there are times where multitasking isn’t appropriate such as graphic intensive games. But, I would hope YouTube gets updated with support for picture-in-picture video, for example.

2: Search

When Apple introduced iOS 7, the Spotlight Search menu to the left of the home screen was relocated to the top of any page of the home screen and was accessible by swiping down from the middle of the screen. With iOS 9 Apple has put, the now renamed, Search menu back in its original home to the left hand side of the home screen while still keeping it accessible by pulling down from the top of the home screen. In addition to the change in placement, Apple has also added Siri Suggestions to the Search interface, which is something I’ll discuss in another post.

The feature I actually like here is the searching. With iOS 9 Apple introduced deep linking. This allows developers to index their apps in a way that when you use iOS’s search functionality you can search for content within apps. This is a vast improvement over the previous system we had.

Using search for searching for content within apps

I’ll admit when I first saw this functionality, I thought it was pretty cool but I couldn’t see myself using it that much. However, after using it a few times I can see how much time it could save you. Before, if you wanted to find a note you had, but you couldn’t remember if you made it in OneNote, Drafts the built in Notes app or some other app, you’d have to go into each of those apps and look for the note. Now there is a much easier solution. By simply typing some of the text you know is in the note, Search will look through the contents of each app and will be able to find the note. Another I like about this is if you search for a Message and tap on one of the results it’ll take you to the exact message, not just the thread like it used to in iOS 8.

Overall Search is immeasurably better in iOS 9 and as more and more developers update their apps with support for the new search features, users can tap even further into the potential of the built-in search functionality.

3: Content Blockers

In iOS 9 Apple has added the ability to create content blockers that can be used in Safari by leveraging the power of extensibility introduced last year with iOS 8. While Apple doesn’t offer a first party content blocker there are plenty available on the App Store. To make use of a content blocker, you install the app from the App Store, go to Safari settings and turn on the content blocker under the content blockers sub-menu.

The magic starts happening after you’ve completed this setup process. The content blocker extension provides a list of rules to Safari on what and what not to, not only display, but also load. So rather than just making certain pieces of a webpage invisible, the content blocker prevents them from loading at all. This reduces the size of a webpage, loading times, battery life and cellular data.

iMore.com with a content blocker turned on (left) and turned off (right)

One of the biggest reasons people have used content blockers so far is to block ads. The addition of content blockers marks the first time users have been able to block ads while browsing the web using Safari. Now there are lots of debates about whether using ad blockers is fair to writers, publishers etc. But what you can’t debate is that by using a content blocker you’re getting a far better web experience.

4: Safari View Controller

For years developers have had two ways to deal with links in their apps; they can either have links open in Safari or they can build in a web view. The former does remove you from the app and breaks the experience somewhat, while the latter could often result in a subpar experience since those web views didn’t have access to the same Javascript engine as Safari and the web view couldn’t access extensions, reader and other features that Safari does offer.

In an effort to provide a more consistent and better experience across iOS, Apple has introduced Safari View Controller (SVC). Safari View Controller is a way of bringing the Safari web viewing experience to an app without having to leave an app. If you tap a link, a SVC slides up from the bottom loading website.

http://samanthabielefeld.com viewed in a Safari View Controller in Twitterrific

The big advantages of SVC is that you can access Safari Reader, the share sheet and (most) of the actions within it, iCloud Keychain and the content blockers you have installed. While having a custom web view will still be the best option for some applications, Safari View Controller can provide a superior experience when used in the right context.

5: Bluetooth Keyboard Enhancements

Another iPad centric feature. Last year I tried using a bluetooth keyboard with my iPad in an effort to start using it for more work and while it did make typing faster, it did have several problems. Despite having bluetooth keyboard support since day one, there were no consistent shortcuts on iPad, the shortcuts that were available were difficult to discover and in my usage the bluetooth keyboard simply didn’t work when trying to use it for quick replies with iMessages. These were just a few of the problems.

iOS 9 changes all of that and it now feels like bluetooth-keyboard support was built into the OS and not bolted onto it. For starters, by holding the command(⌘) key a popup will show a list of all the currently available keyboard shortcuts and what they do, this instantly increases the discoverability of the shortcuts. Another big addition is the ability to use the command-tab shortcut, which is lifted from the Mac, to switch between apps.

Using the command-tab switcher on iPad (left) and the list of available shortcuts displayed by holding the command key

There are a plethora of new keyboard shortcuts such as ones for going back a page in Safari and moving between tabs. This is in addition to custom keyboard shortcuts within apps such as using shift-N for creating a new email in Outlook or a new task in 2Do. While this will likely be one of the lesser used features by users, it increases the functionality of a bluetooth keyboard while using it with an iPad immensely.

This is supported by the iPad mini 2, iPad mini 3, iPad mini 4, iPad Air, iPad Air 2 and iPad Pro.  ↩

[moaningwelshguy]

iOS 9 Adoption Hits 12% after 24 Hours

According to Mixpanel 12% of user have upgraded to iOS 9, 24 hours after being released. 12% is a pretty good number and is better than the 5.1% adoption of Android 5.1 which was released in March of this year. However, the adoption rate of iOS 8 was slightly greater in the first 24 hours of its release; it managed to achieve 16% adoption in the first 24 hours.

It does seem odd to me that the adoption rate for iOS 9 is lower than that of iOS 8 since Apple dramatically reduced the download size of iOS 9 after the gargantuan size of the iOS 8 download which was one of the reasons people didn’t update to iOS 8. Perhaps it was the server issues people had installing iOS 9. It’ll be interesting to see how the adoption of iOS 9 progresses over the next couple of months.

[moaningwelshguy]

Apple's New iCloud Pricing Goes Live

After announcing the new storage tiers and their prices at their most recent event a week ago, Apple has switched over to the new storage tiers. The new prices each month are:

50GB for £0.79/$0.99

200GB for £2.49/$2.99

500GB for £6.99/$9.99

This is an improvement over the old pricing, where you would get 20GB for £0.79 per month. I don’t have a problem with paying for storage on iCloud, however I believe Apple should offer us more than 5GB for free.

[moaningwelshguy]

Editor in Chief of iMore, Rene Ritchie:

iOS 9 had a tough job to do. After consecutive years of major changes many were vocal about wanting a "Snow Leopard" year—a release focused not on yet more splashy new features but on stability and reliability. Except, of course, for the few new features they really wanted, and each different from the other.

And Apple has, in large part, delivered just that. They pushed some plans further off into the future and invested in solving and salving some of the biggest problems and pain points of the that last couple of years. The result is iOS 9, an update that, like Snow Leopard, has no major new features... except for all its major new features

A massive, comprehensive review and a great read. If you get the chance to sink you're teeth into it, I'd highly recommend you do so.

[moaningwelshguy]

From TechCrunch:

Apple has delayed the release of watchOS 2, which was expected to be available today to owners of the Apple Watch.

Talk about disappointing news.

Apple told TechCrunch:

We have discovered a bug in development of watchOS 2 that is taking a bit longer to fix than we expected. We will not release watchOS 2 today but will shortly.

While I would love to start using watchOS 2' I'm glad Apple will hold back the update until the bugs are worked out though, I don't want my Apple Watch to stop working. I'm assuming this is a big bug to hold up release like this. Hopefully they won't be too long fixing the bug and releasing it.

[moaningwelshguy]

Tim Cook regarding if there will be a time when people will buy a tablet rather than a PC or laptop, when asked in a Buzzfeed interview:

I think that some people will never buy a computer. Because I think now we’re at the point where the iPad does what some people want to do with their PCs. I think there are other people — like myself — that will continue to buy a Mac and that it will continue to be a part of the digital solution for us. I see the Mac being a key part of Apple for the long term and I see growth in the Mac for the long term.

I think Cook is on the money here. iPads don’t have the functionality of a Mac, but they’re not meant to. The iPad is a much simpler device and that’s okay because for a lot of people it gets the job done. It’s happening right now, parents will buy an iPad for their children rather than a Mac. You may say that’s because an iPad is cheaper than a Mac and while that’s more than likely a factor, I believe it’s also because it does everything the child will use it for. I imagine in the future only professionals will need a PC or Mac to get their work done and for general consumers a tablet will be more than enough to suit their needs.

Cook’s response when asked about deleting the default apps on iOS:

This is a more complex issue than it first appears. There are some apps that are linked to something else on the iPhone. If they were to be removed they might cause issues elsewhere on the phone. There are other apps that aren’t like that. So over time, I think with the ones that aren’t like that, we’ll figure out a way [for you to remove them]. … It’s not that we want to suck up your real estate; we’re not motivated to do that. We want you to be happy. So I recognize that some people want to do this, and it’s something we’re looking at.

While it seems like the obvious response to give, if you think about it, Cook has a point. Imagine you had Fantastical, which accesses the calendars, installed on your iPhone, what would happen if you deleted the calendar app? Would Fantastical still work? I don’t have the answer to these questions but it seems like there will be ramifications if users deleted some of the default apps. So for right now the folder you have with the apps you don’t use will stick around, but we can be hopeful that will change in the future.

[moaningwelshguy]

Why 5GB of free iCloud Storage isn't Enough

Some people think the cloud is just a hard disk in the sky….we think it’s way more than that and we call it iCloud.

This is what Steve Jobs said when he announced iCloud back in 2011. And he wasn’t wrong in saying that. Up until 2014 when iCloud Drive was announced, Apple did a lot to discourage the idea of iCloud being a place to store your documents. It was positioned more as a syncing service, something that is exemplified by the way Steve demoed iCloud at WWDC; all of the examples involved a document, photo, song or some other type of file syncing between devices without the user having to access some central repository for these files. As Steve Jobs said, “It just works”.

As time has gone on Apple’s stance has changed somewhat but the biggest selling point to the average user is that all of your stuff is synced between you devices. In theory that is a great service. Who doesn’t want their photos synced between devices automatically? Not many people. The average person doesn’t want to deal with the hassle of manually transferring things from one device to another. The problem is even though iCloud, it is hindered by the pathetic 5GB of free storage Apple gives you. Sure quite a lot of stuff like your contacts and calendars don’t count against your iCloud storage but backups and documents do. And when that storage runs out it leads to problems.

I’m the techie in my house. All of my family and a lot of family friends ask me for help when they run into problems with the technology they own. And one of the most common sources of ‘problems’ is iCloud. I call it a ‘problem’ because to an avid tech user it’s not really a problem. For example, my mum recently told me there’s something wrong with her iPhone. The phone was telling her iCloud was full. My mum has no idea how iCloud works and she has no interest in learning either. She just wants her phone to work. The problem was easily solved. It turned out that she still had the backup of her old iPhone on iCloud and that was taking up a lot of space. Deleting the backup solved the problem.

Another example of an iCloud backup related problem is my auntie and her phone. She has a lot of photos on her phone, so many that she is unable to backup her iPhone anymore to iCloud unless she disables iCloud’s backup of her camera roll. Once again my auntie doesn’t understand iCloud, what counts towards your storage and what doesn’t. She simply wants it to just work. Once again I simply deleted some things in iCloud and she could backup her phone just fine.

Now as I said these aren’t major problems. I could easily fix them. However, they couldn’t. Their iPhones alerted them with dialog boxes telling them their iCloud storage was full. A simple problem to solve, but in their eyes their phone was telling them something was wrong and they had no idea how to fix it.

These problems likely wouldn’t have happened if they simply had more storage on iCloud. Sure they could purchase some more storage but why would they purchase storage for something they don’t understand? You might say: “Even if they did have more iCloud storage eventually they’d run into the same problems again”. Well, they might, but I would imagine if Apple gave us 15GB of free iCloud storage, my auntie’s 16GB iPhone would run out of on device storage for more photos before iCloud did for the backup. I will admit my mum may run into the same problem again with the space taken up by backups.

However, my point is iCloud storage becoming full is becoming a problem for the average user, not just tech savvy people. The average user doesn’t know what to do. And in a world where Apple is offering more and more way to fill up your storage such as iCloud Photo Library and iCloud Drive, they need to offer us more free storage. Otherwise iCloud doesn’t “just work”.

[moaningwelshguy]

Sam Byford from The Verge:

Nintendo has appointed Tatsumi Kimishima as its new president following Satoru Iwata's death in July. Kimishima, 65, was most recently the company's managing director and the head of human resources, and previously served as CEO of Nintendo's American arm until Iwata assumed those responsibilities in 2013.

From what I can gather Kimishima is quite different to Iwata. Kimishima likely won't be speaking about his passion for gaming. It does appear though that Nintendo are taking steps to keep the company's passion:

Shigeru Miyamoto and Genyo Takeda, who had been running Nintendo in interim roles, will continue to have influence at the top of the company. Takeda, an important figure in Nintendo's hardware efforts, has been named Technology Fellow, and legendary Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda creator Miyamoto is now Creative Fellow.

I think the main thing is keeping the spirit of Nintendo. Kimishima isn't Iwata, but he doesn't have to be. Much like how people predicted the fall of Apple after Steve Jobs' death, people will likely claim Nintendo is destined to fail now. Nintendo has always focused on the gaming experience and it needs to continue to do so. Will things be exactly the same? No. But in order to avoid stumbling at the death of Iwata, Nintendo needs to continue doing what it does best: making great games.