Month: January 2016

Sunday, January 24

Long Live Touch

In a report outlining recent rumors of an upcoming iPhone 5se, The Verge celebrates Apple’s original innovation with the touch interface by understating the significance of its newest innovation.

It’s really easy to imagine how Apple could make Live Photos work without 3D Touch — just use a long press — but it also kinda sorta speaks to the shortcomings of 3D Touch: that it often feels like a long press could accomplish all the same things.

I agree that a long press can accomplish most or all of the actions introduced by 3D Touch, but that misses the point. It’s not that 3D Touch is the only way; it is a better way. Peek & Pop is a shortcut that would cease to be shorter if initiated by a long press. Plus, how do you “pop” – press longer?

Saturday, January 23

The End of Free Listening on iTunes Radio

Katie Roof, reporting for TechCrunch:

iTunes Radio will no longer be free, as of January 28. In an email to customers, Apple said that the Pandora-like service will only be available for Apple Music subscribers, which costs $9.99 per month.

Most of the Apple TV users I know own the 3rd generation Apple TV, listen to iTunes radio a lot, and do not subscribe to Apple Music. I’m not an alarmist when Apple drops outdated ports or features, but if this move is intended to increase subscriber numbers for Apple Music1, it’s misguided. Hopefully this means that an update is coming for the older Apple TV that will finally add a Pandora app.

  1. I think this decision has more to do with the pending dissolution of Apple’s iAd service than anything else. As others have pointed out, Apple Music’s direct competition is Spotify, not Pandora. ↩