Podcast

Avoiding the Duck — Mac Geek Gab 857

John F. Braun & Dave Hamilton · · Add Comment

We promised Wi-Fi and we delivered Wi-Fi. That’s how it works here at Mac Geek Gab: your two favorite geeks answer your questions and help solve your problems. But it’s not only Wi-Fi, of course. Lots of you asked other questions, and we’ve got that covered, too, including helping to tame that ducking autocorrect feature. Press play and listen as John and Dave help you learn at least five new things!

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Pandora Announces ‘Artist Takeovers’ With Guest Artists

Andrew Orr ·

Pandora announced a new feature for its music stations called Artist Takeovers. It features music handpicked by a different artist with special audio commentary.

The new Artist Takeover series began rolling out in recent months with Shawn Mendes, Chris Stapleton, and more. Artist Takeover Modes are a pop-up experience on stations, and selections from each carry over into Pandora Stories playlists for continued listening.

Artist Takeovers are an extension of Pandora Modes, a feature allowing you to customize your listening experience on favorite Pandora stations by offering a set of selectable “modes” that give more control over the kinds of songs that are played.

I think this sounds like a great feature. It brings to mind guest stars on Apple Radio 1.

Cool Stuff Found

David Goyer Hopes ‘Foundation’ Will Have 80 Episodes on Apple TV+

Andrew Orr ·

Lovin Malta has interviewed writer and show runner for “Foundation” David Goyer about the upcoming series on Apple TV+. After discussing using Malta as the basis for a water world in the show, he also drops a tidbit: “The audience is changing. The way that we’re consuming stories is changing. Game of Thrones was really the first of these big, giant novelistic shows, and now with Foundation we can tell the story hopefully over the course of 80 episodes, 80 hours, as opposed to trying to condense it all into two or three hours for a single film.” It makes sense given the enormous scope of Isaac Asimov’s trilogy. Sounds like they hope to give justice to the saga spanning one thousand years.

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Is There Any Point in the Apple TV Anymore?

Charlotte Henry ·

I’ve long been skeptical about the ongoing value of the Apple TV in a smart TV world. Over at Six Colors, Jason Snell pondered the same thing and looked at where, if anywhere, the box can go next.

For a long time, the killer feature of the Apple TV was that it did things that no other streaming device could do. It supported AirPlay and screen mirroring, for beaming video right from Apple devices to the big screen. And most importantly, it was the only box that supported movies and TV shows rented or purchased from Apple. But over the past couple of years, most of those distinctions have faded away. First, the arrival of the Movies Anywhere service has allowed most iTunes film (not television) purchases to migrate to other devices. Then in advance of the arrival of Apple’s TV streaming service, Apple made deals with the makers of TV sets and streaming boxes to add support for AirPlay, an Apple TV app, or both.

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Apple Should Not Make an iPhone Mini Ever Again

Charlotte Henry ·

The (very) small pool of people that I know who have one love it, but various bits of data indicate that the iPhone 12 mini is not selling well. Ed Hardy at Cult of Mac wrote that this relative failure indicates Apple should not make a 5.4′ iPhone again. Ever. I think it gets to the heart of the debate about your smartphone is for – making calls and replying to emails, or content consumption/creation.

Apple’s top-selling models aren‘t its smallest. On the contrary. The 6.7-inch iPhone 12 Pro Max — the largest ever — experienced a stronger launch than any iOS handset has in years. The 6.1-inch iPhone 12 Pro has since emerged as the top seller, not the tiniest version. This is because of the way we use our phones. They’re personal computers we carry everywhere. With them, we communicate with each other. Take pictures. Shop. Play games. Watch videos. And a bigger screen makes all of these better. “Wish I had a smaller display to watch this TikTok,” said no one ever.

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Who Might Build The Apple Car?

Charlotte Henry ·

Talk about a potential Apple Car continues apace. One of the key questions is who will be the partner that actually makes the vehicle – Hyundai and Kia said recently that talks with them are not happening. Bloomberg News has a good rundown of the potential candidates.

The secret project has gained momentum in recent months, adding multiple former Tesla Inc. executives, gaining the supervision of Apple’s top artificial intelligence executive and ramping up road tests. The initiative, known as Project Titan inside Apple, is attracting intense interest because of its potential to upend the automotive industry and supply chains, much like the iPhone did to the smartphone market. If and when Apple commits to building a car, it is likely to seek multiple partners — including a major one to assemble the vehicle and many others to supply key components.

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HBO Max Launching Internationally in June

Charlotte Henry ·

HBO Max is going to launch internationally in June, The Verge reported. It will start in Latin America and the Caribbean, and they later become available in the Nordics, Spain, Central Europe, and Portugal. At the moment the streaming service is only available in the U.S.

The June launch will see HBO Max expand to 39 countries and territories across Latin America and the Caribbean, including Anguilla, Antigua, Argentina, Aruba, B.V.I., Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Cayman Islands, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Curacao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Montserrat, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Suriname, Trinidad & Tobago, Turks and Caicos, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

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Google Photos for iOS Adds Video Editing, New Photo Editing Features

Andrew Orr ·

Google has added new editing features to its Photos app on iOS, including video editing. New editing features will be available exclusively to Google One members.

Starting today, we’re bringing some of the editing features currently available on Pixel to Google One members as a part of their membership. These effects transform your portraits using machine learning: with Portrait Blur, you can blur the background post-snap, and with Portrait Light, you can improve the lighting on faces in portraits. Both features work for photos just taken or images from the past — even if the original image wasn’t taken in portrait mode.