Based upon his own personal explorations of why AI large language models work so well, former Apple exec Bertrand Serlet has created an excellent 30 minute video introduction to them. He introduces the notion of the “curse of dimensionality” – how the scale of LLMs increase so dramatically – and then the “blessing of dimensionality” as helping to explain some of the “magic” of neural networks. Worth watching!
This week was the 40th anniversary of the announcement of the Apple Macintosh. I still remember the day I got my first Macintosh. It was a Mac SE/30, a compact all-in-one computer with a 9-inch monochrome display. It was the fastest (Motorola 68030 powered) and most powerful of the original black-and-white Macs, and I loved it.
Up until that point I was an IBM PC user having bought my first IBM PC as part of the employee purchase program IBM offered. By the time I got my first Mac I had moved on from IBM and my son had inherited by PC. I remember him being a fan of Borland’s Turbo Pascal on the PC where he really learned programming.
The SE/30 was released in January 1989, and I got mine a few months later at Fry’s in Palo Alto. It came with a 16 MHz 68030 processor, 4 MB of RAM, and an 40 MB hard drive.
The SE/30 was a versatile machine. It had a Processor Direct Slot (PDS) that allowed me to add expansion cards, but I never opted to install any. It could also support up to 128 MB of RAM, which was a huge amount at the time, but it required a ROM swap or a system extension to enable 32-bit addressing.
The SE/30 was my faithful companion for many years. I used it for the usual applications: word processing, spreadsheet, graphics, and games. I also used it to connect to the Internet, using a dial-up modem and a web browser. I was amazed by the amount of information and entertainment that was available online especially on CompuServe where I became a forum sysop responsible for managing several online forums.
The SE/30 was not only a powerful computer, but also a beautiful one. It had a sleek and elegant design, with a platinum-colored case and a friendly smiley face icon on the startup screen. It was easy to use, with a graphical user interface and a mouse. It was also reliable and durable, with no problems needing repairs. I had a carrying case for it and took it on several airplane trips storing it up in the overhead compartment!
The SE/30 was more than just a machine. It was a part of my life during those years. It was my first Macintosh, and it will always have a special place in my heart!
Like a lot of folks, I’ve been a long time user of Apple leather iPhone cases. I like how they felt in the hand – with just enough friction to my grip to allow me to hold my phone securely even while angling for the best photo shot.
With the iPhone 15, Apple for environmental reasons has eliminated the use of leather cases and replaced them a new case material called FineWoven. I recently upgraded to a new iPhone 15 Pro Max and got one of the new FineWoven cases to match.
There have been a LOT of complaints in various articles online about this new material – about how it’s just not an adequate replacement for the old leather material. My view is different – I’m pleased with the feel of the new FineWoven material and find it to be a suitable replacement – especially if it’s better for the environment to make cases from this material instead of leather.
There is one minor complaint I have, however. I find the FineWoven case to be a bit “slippery” in my grip. I’m hoping I’ll adapt to it but at least initially its slipperiness is bothersome – as dropping my iPhone isn’t something I at all want to do!
I don’t have any particular suggestion to make as to how Apple might make the material less slippery and I certainly wouldn’t want some new additional coating to attempt to address the issue. I’ll hopefully adjust soon enough and try to extra careful in the meantime.
In today’s fast-paced and interconnected world, maintaining focus on the task at hand has become increasingly challenging. With constant distractions clamoring for our attention, staying productive and centered on our goals seems like an uphill battle. Recognizing this common struggle, Apple introduced a game-changing feature called Focus Mode in iOS 15, designed to empower users by customizing their digital experience to suit specific contexts, thus fostering a deeper sense of presence and enhancing concentration.
Focus Modes represent a significant enhancement to the existing Do Not Disturb switch, providing users with the flexibility to define up to 10 personalized modes across their Apple devices signed into the same iCloud account. Each Focus Mode can be tailored to cater to distinct scenarios, allowing users to curate their digital environment and strategically filter out distractions.
Imagine beginning your day with a “Work” Focus Mode that silences social media notifications, personal messages, and non-essential emails, enabling you to channel your energy into crucial tasks without the constant buzz of interruptions. Alternatively, during a “Fitness” Focus Mode, only health-related apps and notifications would break through, encouraging an uninterrupted workout routine without distractions.
Initially, some users may overlook the potential of Focus Modes, as I did myself until iOS 16 introduced several enhancements that caught my attention. After experimenting with various modes, I discovered a “Reading” focus mode that significantly improved my reading experience. With the “Set a Schedule” feature in Focus mode setup, I could automatically activate this Reading mode whenever I opened reading-centric apps like Kindle, Instapaper, Gmail, Twitter, YouTube (watching is like reading!) and a few more. In this way, Reading focus mode effectively minimizes notifications, allowing me to immerse myself fully in the reading material while minimizing disruptions.
A real breakthrough came when I stumbled upon “Focus Filters.” Within my Reading focus mode, I also configured my iPhone to activate dark mode and low power mode, preserving battery life while creating a distraction-free reading environment. Why have my iPhone waste battery power doing other tasks in the background – like email, etc – while I’m reading?
Setting up a Focus Mode is straightforward through the Settings/Focus setting, although it may require some initial experimentation to find the perfect configuration.
To further complement my Reading focus mode, I also created a Personal Automation shortcut that automatically enables low power mode whenever my battery level drops below 50% and I’m away from my home Wi-Fi network. Another automation reverses the process when the battery level rises above 50%.
These seemingly small enhancements have improved my overall iPhone experience, making it more personal and satisfying. Embracing Focus Modes has been a game-changer, helping me reclaim control over my attention and boost productivity in various aspects of my life.
In conclusion, Apple’s Focus Modes epitomize the company’s commitment to enhancing user experience and productivity. By leveraging this powerful feature, users can tailor their digital environment to suit specific contexts, unlocking a new level of focus and efficiency. So, why not give it a try and experience the transformative potential of Focus Modes for yourself? It may just be the key to unlocking a more meaningful and rewarding digital lifestyle.
Listening to the latest episode of John Gruber’s Talk Show podcast, his guest Matthew Panzarino makes a useful point about Apple’s new Vision Pro headset: namely that Apple has set a “bar” in terms of the important technology that results in an effective minimum viable environment (MVE).
He makes a very useful point – that going forward, the Vision Pro’s key technology features will be used to measure up future devices to see whether they can possibly deliver at least the experience that the Vision Pro can. In particular, specs like display resolution, refresh rate, etc. are important – and contribute to having an experience with the headset that is of high quality and doesn’t lead to you feeling sick.
MVE builds on the notion that became popular a few years ago called minimum viable product (MVP) and which has become a religion for startups. It’s all about how a startup needs to get an initial product out into the market – a product that provides a baseline set of capabilities. Only by getting into the market can the startup learn what it needs to learn from the market’s reaction to its product. MVE is similar although kind of the reverse from MVP in the sense that MVE represents the minimum standard for a quality experience and not the minimum experience typically thought of with MVP. MVE is a useful definition especially for a product like Apple Vision Pro.
See Panzarino’s first impressions of the Vision Pro.
I’m not sure what provoked my interest earlier this week, but I enjoyed watching the documentary from a few years ago on the history of General Magic. Living in Silicon Valley, I remember hearing stories about the company – and the talented people working at the company led by CEO Marc Porat.
Watching the documentary provided some great background into how the company innovated in so many ways yet wasn’t able to be a commercial success. Lessons learned included how great ideas fail when they’re too early for the technology to support them, the implications of trying to partner with other large companies, and the dangers of competition that “fast follows” on your ideas.
Last night, I stumbled across another fun video produced by the Computer History Museum about the history of MacPaint, Quickdraw, and more as told by Bill Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld. They were both early employees at Apple, very important software developers on the Mac platform, who left Apple to be early founders of General Magic. Listening to them talk about the early days of development at Apple was very interesting.
While watching yesterday’s Apple Keynote event, one of the iPhone slides showing some of the enhancements in the new iPhone 11 made mention of “Apple-designed U1” chip. This chip wasn’t mentioned during the keynote – it was only mentioned on that slide.
Turns out that Brian Roemmele was tweeting about this during the event and then went on to post an article on Quora titled “What is the new Apple U1 chip, and why is it important?”
His article points out that there’s some text on Apple’s website saying more: “Ultra Wideband technology comes to iPhone” – which describes the U1 chip as enabling spatial awareness in the new iPhone 11 models – “Think GPS at the scale of your living room”. The first practical usage for the feature is for AirDrop sharing of files with someone nearby – “just point your iPhone at theirs and they’ll be first on the list.” Apple goes on: “It’s like adding another sense to iPhone, and it’s going to lead to amazing new capabilities.”
Roemmele describes more about this new ultra wideband technology, some of the intellectual property behind it – including several interesting Apple patents – and calls it a “personal radar system.” He goes on to speculate about how this technology could be used, implications for developers, etc. It’s quite an article he’s written!
This ultra wideband is fascinating stuff – I look forward to learning more about this technology and the applications coming that will take more advantage of it!
Update (9/12/19): Wired has an article titled The Biggest iPhone News Is a Tiny New Chip Inside It with more information about ultra wideband including a link to the original FCC order discussing it.
I took about two hours this morning to watch Apple’s keynote event – each September Apple holds one of these primarily to announce the new family of iPhones. They did that today – along with some other interesting things. Below are my notes.
Tim Cook – Good morning! Apple is all about empowering people to do incredible things. Big morning today! Big announcements! So much that he skipped the usual business updates.
Arcade – First game subscription service. Exclusive new games. Over 100. Subscription-based. Arcade tab in the App Store icon. New games every month. Game demonstrations from Konami, Capcom, and Annapurna Interactive. Arcade will be available Sep 19th. Cost $4.99/month for family subscription. 1 month free trial.
Apple TV+ – Bringing the best original stories from the best creative minds. “Stories to believe in, stories with purpose.” Examples: For All Mankind. Dickinson. The Morning Show. Three trailers released earlier this summer have >100 MM views. Apple TV+ first shows on Nov 1 in the Apple TV app. $4.99/month for family subscription. Starting today – 1 year of Apple TV+ included with new purchase of iPhone, Mac, etc.
iPad – transforming how we learn, work, play. New replacement for the 9.7 inch iPad – new 7th generation iPad. New larger 10.2 inch Retina display. A10 Fusion chip. Smart connector and Smart Keyboard, Apple Pencil (first generation) support. 100% recycled aluminum enclosure. $329 starting price. $299 for education. Order today, shipping September 30.
Apple Watch -Three new health studies coming: Apple Hearing Study, Women’s Health Study, Heart & Movement Study. Use new Apple Research App to enroll in studies – available later this year in US. New Apple Watch Series 5 with always on display. High/low brightness. Built-in compass and updated Maps app. New Compass app shows lat/lon/elevation. International emergency calling in every cellular model. New case finishes – 100% recycled aluminum. Stainless in new colors. Titanium in two finishes. Ceramic – brilliant white. New Nike models. New Hermes models. GPS models start at $399. $499 for cellular. Order starting today. Available Sep 20. Series 3 remains in the line. $199 price for GPS model.
iPhone 11 – Anodized aluminum/glass on front and back. 6 new colors. 6.1” display. Sound virtualizer with Dolby Atmos. Camera – dual camera system – new 26 mm wide camera. 13 mm ultra wide camera with 120 degree field of view. Updated image pipeline. Semantic rendering. Smart HDR. Portrait mode. Photos of pets. New lighting effect – high key mono. Night mode – automatically turns on. Adaptive bracketing. QuickTake – just hold shutter button to take video. New 12 MP front camera. Added slo mo to front camera. Slofies. New A13 Bionic chip – fastest CPU ever in smartphone. GPU – fastest GPU in a smartphone. Battery life – 1 hour more than iPhone Xr. Faster FaceID. Wifi 6. $699 starting price.
iPhone 11 Pro – first phone called Pro. Surgical grade stainless steel. Glass, matte textured back. New finishes – midnight green, space grey, silver, new gold. Display comes in two sizes 5.8 and 6.5 inches. Brighter, contrast ratio, etc. Spatial audio sound, Dolby Atmos. Super Retina XDR display. A13 Bionic chip. Battery life – 4 hours more than iPhone Xs. Max up to 5 hours longer. Fast charge 18W charger included. New Pro camera system with three cameras – 26mm/f1.8, 52mm/f2.0, 13mm/f2.4 cameras. Sneak peek coming this fall – using neural engine – Deep Fusion. 9 images shot – 4 images shot before the shutter button. Performs pixel by pixel optimization. Video – 4K 60 bps XDR video. New Apple U1 chip. New line of cases including clear cases. Starting price at $999, Max at $1099. Preorder starting this Friday at 5 AM Pacific. Shipping on September 20. Keeping iPhone Xr and 8 also in the line.
Apple Retail – Personalization – with Apple Watch Series 5 – can choose any case and pair with any watch band. Apple Watch Studio – in stores and online. Apple Trade In program for iPhones. On Sep 20, hosting reopening of Apple 5th Avenue Store in NYC.
Tim Cook – exciting morning! Arcade, Apple TV+, new iPad 10.2 inch, new Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro. “Thanks to everyone at Apple for doing the best work of their lives.”
What to do? Being such a photography buff, the new iPhone 11 Pro camera system looks very exciting to me! It’s amazing to me how the smartphone cameras are evolving with new capabilities and overtaking the existing camera industry (see Om’s post). I expect I’ll be upgrading from my iPhone Xs Max to the new iPhone 11 Pro later this fall.
More: A video replay of the event is also available. Also, John Voorhees at MacStories has put together a useful post with the release dates for OS Updates, New iPhones, and Apple Watch.
[Update: Be sure to see this post talking about me doing two days of street photography in San Francisco with the Fujifilm X70.]
A couple of years ago I made the switch from Canon DSLR’s to Fujifilm’s X series cameras – initially to the Fujifilm X-E2, then an X100S (since sold), then an X-T1, then an X100T – and, just now adding the new Fujifilm X70 to my camera bag. I’ve come to appreciate Fuji’s approach to cameras – and love shooting with them. There’s something special for me about Fuji’s design esthetic that creates a delightful experience when I’m out on the streets shooting with one of their cameras.
So, what spot does the new X70 fill for me? It’s that camera that’s always with me – but a step above the iPhone that’s always in my pocket.
What’s going to be interesting over the next couple of years is how those two converge – or collide. My iPhone 6s has a beautiful sensor – and a delightful Camera app that let’s me create wonderful images. The X70 is just a cut above – a photographer’s delight with all of the manual controls plus the integration with my iOS devices. They’re converging – but still different enough to be separate experiences. I not going to carry my iPhone on a wrist strap while walking the streets – and I’m unlikely to pull out the X70 if I want to take a quick shot of friends, a beautiful meal or a street scene that just materializes.
In other words, we’re still learning – and I’m enjoying the process. Someone once said a smart man is known by his tools. Both of these tools are superb instruments – converging in ways I’m yet to understand.
I’ve decided to head in the direction that others have been using for a while with iPhoto. After importing images into Lightroom – and processing/editing them there – they use iPhoto as the final repository for their images. In other words, everything that’s been worth processing has been edited in LR (and, perhaps, also in Photoshop) and is then exported to disk and imported into iPhoto – where there’s a series of folders for the portfolio, what has been uploaded, etc.
In my case, I’ve only been using iPhoto for the last couple of years for my photo books. I love the quality of the Apple photo books – and want to keep using them for that service. I’ve used Blurb for a couple of my photo books but I find Apple’s service is higher quality and I prefer it.
So, along comes the new Photos app in Yosemite 10.10.3. I was complaining about it to friends last week – because of how long it was taking to sync my iPhoto library to the new iCloud Photo Library (about 11,000 photos). It took another day or so and it was finished. What’s lovely now is that now that the sync has completed I have those photos on all of my devices.
After exploring Photos further and doing some additional research, I’m embarking on a new workflow for my images. I’ve imported the selects for my 2012-14 Portfolio books into Photos – they’re now syncing to my iCloud Photo Library. For the historical portfolio of my best images – they will be easily available on all of my devices.
Going forward, my edited images will come out of LR and go right into Photos – into a new folder/album structure in Photos for my best portfolio images. From there, I’ll manage the sharing to Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, etc. instead of using the manual upload processes I’ve been using for those.
Seems like the best solution for me. Leaves Lightroom Mobile out of the picture – everything will simply be in the Photos apps on my Apple devices. We’ll try it for a week or two and see how it works.
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