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Adobe:

Today, Adobe unveiled Generative Remove in Adobe
Lightroom, bringing the magic of Adobe Firefly
directly into everyday photo editing workflows across Lightroom
mobile, web and desktop surfaces. Generative Remove is Lightroom’s
most powerful remove tool yet, giving everyone the power to remove
unwanted objects from any photo non-destructively in a single
click by intelligently matching the removed area with pixel
perfect generations for high-quality, realistic and stunning
results. From removing distractions in family photos, to
empowering professionals with speedier retouching workflows and
more fine-grain control, Generative Remove empowers exciting
capabilities for all photographers. Generative Remove is available
today as an early access feature across the Lightroom ecosystem
for millions of users.

As software ever more dominates the field of photography, Nilay Patel often asks, “What is a photo?”

I’m not exactly comfortable with making removal of people and objects this easy, but I also really want to use the feature myself. The discomfort this causes is exactly in line with the discomfort that Photoshop 1.0 raised in 1990. Generative fill/erase is raising to the level of table stakes. Google launched Magic Eraser in 2021. Adobe’s brief demo video in this press release doesn’t show a professional photographer — it’s a woman shooting photos with her phone. Apple is going to have to add this to Photos, and it ought to be announced next month.

 ★ 

Adobe:

Today, Adobe unveiled Generative Remove in Adobe
Lightroom, bringing the magic of Adobe Firefly
directly into everyday photo editing workflows across Lightroom
mobile, web and desktop surfaces. Generative Remove is Lightroom’s
most powerful remove tool yet, giving everyone the power to remove
unwanted objects from any photo non-destructively in a single
click by intelligently matching the removed area with pixel
perfect generations for high-quality, realistic and stunning
results. From removing distractions in family photos, to
empowering professionals with speedier retouching workflows and
more fine-grain control, Generative Remove empowers exciting
capabilities for all photographers. Generative Remove is available
today as an early access feature across the Lightroom ecosystem
for millions of users.

As software ever more dominates the field of photography, Nilay Patel often asks, “What is a photo?”

I’m not exactly comfortable with making removal of people and objects this easy, but I also really want to use the feature myself. The discomfort this causes is exactly in line with the discomfort that Photoshop 1.0 raised in 1990. Generative fill/erase is raising to the level of table stakes. Google launched Magic Eraser in 2021. Adobe’s brief demo video in this press release doesn’t show a professional photographer — it’s a woman shooting photos with her phone. Apple is going to have to add this to Photos, and it ought to be announced next month.

Read More 

Andrew Cunningham, writing for Ars Technica:

One caveat that I hadn’t seen mentioned in Microsoft’s
presentation or in other coverage of the announcement, though — Microsoft says that both of these devices have fans. Apple still
uses fans for the MacBook Pro lineup, but the MacBook Air is
totally fanless. Bear that in mind when reading Microsoft’s claims
about performance.

Are any of today’s first batch of “Copilot+ PCs” fanless? If not, can any of them truly be said to have “taken aim” at the MacBook Air?

Acer Swift 14 AI: I couldn’t find any mention of fans or cooling, which makes me think it has fans.
Asus Vivobook S 15: “Plus, dust filters for both fans keep your laptop pristine.”
Dell: No mention.
HP: No mention.
Lenovo: No mention.
Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge: Only mention of “fan”: “Galaxy Book4 Edge also brings fan-favorite features, Chat Assist and Live Translate, to the PC.”

If any of these are fanless, I’d expect that to be a touted feature. If I’m wrong and one or more of these are fanless, let me know and I’ll post an update. But if they’re not fanless, it’s hard to say they’re MacBook Air peers.

 ★ 

Andrew Cunningham, writing for Ars Technica:

One caveat that I hadn’t seen mentioned in Microsoft’s
presentation or in other coverage of the announcement, though — Microsoft says that both of these devices have fans. Apple still
uses fans for the MacBook Pro lineup, but the MacBook Air is
totally fanless. Bear that in mind when reading Microsoft’s claims
about performance.

Are any of today’s first batch of “Copilot+ PCs” fanless? If not, can any of them truly be said to have “taken aim” at the MacBook Air?

Acer Swift 14 AI: I couldn’t find any mention of fans or cooling, which makes me think it has fans.
Asus Vivobook S 15: “Plus, dust filters for both fans keep your laptop pristine.”
Dell: No mention.
HP: No mention.
Lenovo: No mention.
Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge: Only mention of “fan”: “Galaxy Book4 Edge also brings fan-favorite features, Chat Assist and Live Translate, to the PC.”

If any of these are fanless, I’d expect that to be a touted feature. If I’m wrong and one or more of these are fanless, let me know and I’ll post an update. But if they’re not fanless, it’s hard to say they’re MacBook Air peers.

Read More 

Also from Tom Warren:

The basic silhouette of the hardware hasn’t changed much, save for
the new Flex Keyboard attachment. The tablet with an integrated
kickstand has been a Surface staple for years now, and Microsoft
continues to refine it rather than trying to reinvent it.

I got a chance to try this new Flex Keyboard, and I’m surprised at
how much more stable it is than previous models. There’s no
noticeable bounce when you’re using it on a desk, and even on my
lap, it felt a lot more study than the previous Surface Pro
keyboards.

You can even use this keyboard away from the Surface Pro as it
automatically switches over to a Bluetooth connection once you
undock it. Microsoft has a tiny battery inside the base to enable
this and the new haptic feedback on the trackpad in this Flex
Keyboard. The haptic feedback doesn’t feel as prominent as on the
Surface Laptop Studio 2, but it’s still nice to have inside this
new keyboard.

The basic idea of the Flex Keyboard is that it’s like the bottom part of a laptop — an integrated keyboard and trackpad, with a little dock for for the included Slim Pen stylus. Unlike Apple’s iPad Magic Keyboard, the Flex Keyboard has a battery and works wirelessly over Bluetooth. I spitballed a similar idea for Apple’s Magic Keyboard on my podcast last month with Federico Viticci.

The appeal of working wirelessly isn’t so much, to my mind, for tablets. I can’t recall ever wishing my iPad Magic Keyboard would remain connected to my iPad over Bluetooth. In fact, I could see that being annoying when I want to use my iPad all by itself, with its on-screen keyboard. There’s a certain “you know what you’re getting” aspect to the fact that the Magic Keyboard is only active when the iPad is magnetically attached. The appeal I see of the Flex Keyboard design would be using it with a headset like Vision Pro. Vision Pro has great support for Bluetooth keyboards and Apple’s Magic Trackpad, but that makes two things you need to carry around with your Vision Pro if you want to use it for productivity. Better would be a single keyboard with an integrated trackpad.

Microsoft can use this design because they’ve steadfastly stuck to their guns on including a kickstand with Surface Pro tablets. Apple has never released an iPad with a kickstand, and almost certainly never will. But without a kickstand on the iPad itself, the Magic Keyboard needs that big cantilevered magnetic hinge to attach and support the iPad, which in turn renders the design unfeasible for pairing with a Vision headset. Even if the new Magic Keyboard had a battery and supported Bluetooth, it wouldn’t be a graceful peripheral for Vision Pro because of the hinge.

So Microsoft has an integrated keyboard/trackpad peripheral that seems perfect for use with a headset, but they only make headsets that no one seems to care about. And Apple has a headset that would be great with an integrated keyboard/trackpad, but their integrated keyboard/trackpad is designed exclusively for the new iPad Pros.

The Flex Keyboard With Slim Pen isn’t cheap, either: $450. A 13-inch iPad Magic Keyboard costs $330 and Pencil Pro costs $130.

 ★ 

Also from Tom Warren:

The basic silhouette of the hardware hasn’t changed much, save for
the new Flex Keyboard attachment. The tablet with an integrated
kickstand has been a Surface staple for years now, and Microsoft
continues to refine it rather than trying to reinvent it.

I got a chance to try this new Flex Keyboard, and I’m surprised at
how much more stable it is than previous models. There’s no
noticeable bounce when you’re using it on a desk, and even on my
lap, it felt a lot more study than the previous Surface Pro
keyboards.

You can even use this keyboard away from the Surface Pro as it
automatically switches over to a Bluetooth connection once you
undock it. Microsoft has a tiny battery inside the base to enable
this and the new haptic feedback on the trackpad in this Flex
Keyboard. The haptic feedback doesn’t feel as prominent as on the
Surface Laptop Studio 2, but it’s still nice to have inside this
new keyboard.

The basic idea of the Flex Keyboard is that it’s like the bottom part of a laptop — an integrated keyboard and trackpad, with a little dock for for the included Slim Pen stylus. Unlike Apple’s iPad Magic Keyboard, the Flex Keyboard has a battery and works wirelessly over Bluetooth. I spitballed a similar idea for Apple’s Magic Keyboard on my podcast last month with Federico Viticci.

The appeal of working wirelessly isn’t so much, to my mind, for tablets. I can’t recall ever wishing my iPad Magic Keyboard would remain connected to my iPad over Bluetooth. In fact, I could see that being annoying when I want to use my iPad all by itself, with its on-screen keyboard. There’s a certain “you know what you’re getting” aspect to the fact that the Magic Keyboard is only active when the iPad is magnetically attached. The appeal I see of the Flex Keyboard design would be using it with a headset like Vision Pro. Vision Pro has great support for Bluetooth keyboards and Apple’s Magic Trackpad, but that makes two things you need to carry around with your Vision Pro if you want to use it for productivity. Better would be a single keyboard with an integrated trackpad.

Microsoft can use this design because they’ve steadfastly stuck to their guns on including a kickstand with Surface Pro tablets. Apple has never released an iPad with a kickstand, and almost certainly never will. But without a kickstand on the iPad itself, the Magic Keyboard needs that big cantilevered magnetic hinge to attach and support the iPad, which in turn renders the design unfeasible for pairing with a Vision headset. Even if the new Magic Keyboard had a battery and supported Bluetooth, it wouldn’t be a graceful peripheral for Vision Pro because of the hinge.

So Microsoft has an integrated keyboard/trackpad peripheral that seems perfect for use with a headset, but they only make headsets that no one seems to care about. And Apple has a headset that would be great with an integrated keyboard/trackpad, but their integrated keyboard/trackpad is designed exclusively for the new iPad Pros.

The Flex Keyboard With Slim Pen isn’t cheap, either: $450. A 13-inch iPad Magic Keyboard costs $330 and Pencil Pro costs $130.

Read More 

Tom Warren, writing for The Verge:

On a recent morning at its headquarters in Redmond,
Washington, Microsoft representatives set out new Surface
devices equipped with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite chips
inside and compared them directly to Apple’s category-leading
laptop. I witnessed an hour of demos and benchmarks that started
with Geekbench and Cinebench comparisons, then moved on to apps
and compatibility.

Benchmark tests usually aren’t that exciting to watch. But a lot
was at stake here: for years, the MacBook Air has been able to
smoke Arm-powered PC chips — and Intel-based ones, too. Except,
this time around, the Surface pulled ahead on the first test. Then
it won another test and another after that. The results of these
tests are why Microsoft believes it’s now in position to conquer
the laptop market.

Microsoft’s comparison were all against M3 MacBook Air models. Fair enough, insofar as the MacBook Air is by far Apple’s best-selling line of laptops, and the M3 models shipped just two months ago. But the MacBook Airs are fanless. A lot — most? all? I’m not sure — of the new “Copilot+ PCs” Microsoft showed off today have fans. (Or if you prefer, “active cooling systems”.) Microsoft’s own new Surface Laptops has MacBook-Air-esque pricing (13-inch starts at $1000; 15-inch starts at $1300) but they weigh about 0.3 pounds more than the equivalent-sized MacBook Air. Those weights puts them more in the class of the M2 13-inch MacBook Pro.

All of this app compatibility and performance is nothing without
battery life, though. Microsoft uses a script to simulate web
browsing. On 2022’s Intel-based Surface Laptop 5, it took eight
hours, 38 minutes to completely deplete a battery; the new Surface
Copilot Plus PC lasted three [sic] times that, hitting 16 hours, 56
minutes. That’s an incredible jump in efficiency, and it even
beats the same test on a 15-inch MacBook Air M3, which lasted 15
hours, 25 minutes. That’s a whole hour and a half more.

Microsoft ran a similar test for video playback, which saw the
Surface Copilot Plus PC hit more than 20 hours in a test, with the
MacBook Air M3 reaching 17 hours, 45 minutes. That’s also nearly
eight hours more than the Surface Laptop 5, which lasted 12 hours,
30 minutes. If those battery gains extend beyond basic web
browsing and video playback, this will be a significant
improvement for Windows laptops.

I presume Warren meant that the new Surface Laptop lasted twice as long as the old Intel-based model, not three times as long. But this highlights my main hardware takeaway from today’s event: the M3 MacBook Air served as a good foil/benchmark for all these comparison — performance, battery, price — but the real comparison was Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite vs. Intel’s and AMD’s x86 offerings.

I’ll go out on a limb and say that today marks the beginning of the end for x86. Either the x86 architecture has reached an inevitable endpoint, or Intel and AMD are just unable to compete talent-wise. (Or both.) But as of today the performance-per-watt gulf between ARM and Intel/x86 is no longer just an Apple silicon thing — it’s now a PC thing too. If there was any chance for Intel or AMD to catch up it had to happen between the M1’s breakthrough introduction in 2020 and now. But they couldn’t do it.

The saddest part of the event were the cursory appearances — both by pre-recorded videos, despite it being an in-person event in Redmond — of Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger and AMD CEO Lisa Su. Their token appearances felt like Microsoft pretending they haven’t moved on from x86, during an event whose entire theme was, effectively, “moving on from x86”. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite is only being compared to Apple’s base M3, so it’s still up to Intel and AMD to offer chips with performance on the level of the M3 Pro and Max, but the writing is on the wall. The future belongs to ARM system architectures.

 ★ 

Tom Warren, writing for The Verge:

On a recent morning at its headquarters in Redmond,
Washington, Microsoft representatives set out new Surface
devices equipped with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite chips
inside and compared them directly to Apple’s category-leading
laptop. I witnessed an hour of demos and benchmarks that started
with Geekbench and Cinebench comparisons, then moved on to apps
and compatibility.

Benchmark tests usually aren’t that exciting to watch. But a lot
was at stake here: for years, the MacBook Air has been able to
smoke Arm-powered PC chips — and Intel-based ones, too. Except,
this time around, the Surface pulled ahead on the first test. Then
it won another test and another after that. The results of these
tests are why Microsoft believes it’s now in position to conquer
the laptop market.

Microsoft’s comparison were all against M3 MacBook Air models. Fair enough, insofar as the MacBook Air is by far Apple’s best-selling line of laptops, and the M3 models shipped just two months ago. But the MacBook Airs are fanless. A lot — most? all? I’m not sure — of the new “Copilot+ PCs” Microsoft showed off today have fans. (Or if you prefer, “active cooling systems”.) Microsoft’s own new Surface Laptops has MacBook-Air-esque pricing (13-inch starts at $1000; 15-inch starts at $1300) but they weigh about 0.3 pounds more than the equivalent-sized MacBook Air. Those weights puts them more in the class of the M2 13-inch MacBook Pro.

All of this app compatibility and performance is nothing without
battery life, though. Microsoft uses a script to simulate web
browsing. On 2022’s Intel-based Surface Laptop 5, it took eight
hours, 38 minutes to completely deplete a battery; the new Surface
Copilot Plus PC lasted three [sic] times that, hitting 16 hours, 56
minutes. That’s an incredible jump in efficiency, and it even
beats the same test on a 15-inch MacBook Air M3, which lasted 15
hours, 25 minutes. That’s a whole hour and a half more.

Microsoft ran a similar test for video playback, which saw the
Surface Copilot Plus PC hit more than 20 hours in a test, with the
MacBook Air M3 reaching 17 hours, 45 minutes. That’s also nearly
eight hours more than the Surface Laptop 5, which lasted 12 hours,
30 minutes. If those battery gains extend beyond basic web
browsing and video playback, this will be a significant
improvement for Windows laptops.

I presume Warren meant that the new Surface Laptop lasted twice as long as the old Intel-based model, not three times as long. But this highlights my main hardware takeaway from today’s event: the M3 MacBook Air served as a good foil/benchmark for all these comparison — performance, battery, price — but the real comparison was Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite vs. Intel’s and AMD’s x86 offerings.

I’ll go out on a limb and say that today marks the beginning of the end for x86. Either the x86 architecture has reached an inevitable endpoint, or Intel and AMD are just unable to compete talent-wise. (Or both.) But as of today the performance-per-watt gulf between ARM and Intel/x86 is no longer just an Apple silicon thing — it’s now a PC thing too. If there was any chance for Intel or AMD to catch up it had to happen between the M1’s breakthrough introduction in 2020 and now. But they couldn’t do it.

The saddest part of the event were the cursory appearances — both by pre-recorded videos, despite it being an in-person event in Redmond — of Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger and AMD CEO Lisa Su. Their token appearances felt like Microsoft pretending they haven’t moved on from x86, during an event whose entire theme was, effectively, “moving on from x86”. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite is only being compared to Apple’s base M3, so it’s still up to Intel and AMD to offer chips with performance on the level of the M3 Pro and Max, but the writing is on the wall. The future belongs to ARM system architectures.

Read More 

Microsoft today held an event on the eve of their Build developer conference to introduce their new “AI first” class of PCs, which they’re calling Copilot+ PCs. The event video is not on YouTube (yet?), and the URL (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/event) is not a permalink.

The most notable new Windows feature is Recall (which conceptually seems much like Rewind, which has been available as a third-party app for MacOS for a while now):

We set out to solve one of the most frustrating problems we
encounter daily — finding something we know we have seen before
on our PC. Today, we must remember what file folder it was stored
in, what website it was on, or scroll through hundreds of emails
trying to find it.

Now with Recall, you can access virtually what you have seen or
done on your PC in a way that feels like having photographic
memory. Copilot+ PCs organize information like we do — based on
relationships and associations unique to each of our individual
experiences. This helps you remember things you may have forgotten
so you can find what you’re looking for quickly and intuitively by
simply using the cues you remember. […]

Recall leverages your personal semantic index, built and stored
entirely on your device. Your snapshots are yours; they stay
locally on your PC. You can delete individual snapshots, adjust
and delete ranges of time in Settings, or pause at any point right
from the icon in the System Tray on your Taskbar. You can also
filter apps and websites from ever being saved. You are always in
control with privacy you can trust.

Recall can “view” and remember everything that appears on screen because it’s integrated with the Windows 11 graphics system. That’s the sort of “AI feature” that truly benefits from being a first-party solution that can integrate at lower levels of the OS than third-party apps can.

One of the more impressive demos they showed was using Copilot as a voice-driven assistant that helps you cooperatively play Minecraft. The game still gets the entire GPU for graphics because Copilot is running on the NPU.

 ★ 

Microsoft today held an event on the eve of their Build developer conference to introduce their new “AI first” class of PCs, which they’re calling Copilot+ PCs. The event video is not on YouTube (yet?), and the URL (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/event) is not a permalink.

The most notable new Windows feature is Recall (which conceptually seems much like Rewind, which has been available as a third-party app for MacOS for a while now):

We set out to solve one of the most frustrating problems we
encounter daily — finding something we know we have seen before
on our PC. Today, we must remember what file folder it was stored
in, what website it was on, or scroll through hundreds of emails
trying to find it.

Now with Recall, you can access virtually what you have seen or
done on your PC in a way that feels like having photographic
memory. Copilot+ PCs organize information like we do — based on
relationships and associations unique to each of our individual
experiences. This helps you remember things you may have forgotten
so you can find what you’re looking for quickly and intuitively by
simply using the cues you remember. […]

Recall leverages your personal semantic index, built and stored
entirely on your device. Your snapshots are yours; they stay
locally on your PC. You can delete individual snapshots, adjust
and delete ranges of time in Settings, or pause at any point right
from the icon in the System Tray on your Taskbar. You can also
filter apps and websites from ever being saved. You are always in
control with privacy you can trust.

Recall can “view” and remember everything that appears on screen because it’s integrated with the Windows 11 graphics system. That’s the sort of “AI feature” that truly benefits from being a first-party solution that can integrate at lower levels of the OS than third-party apps can.

One of the more impressive demos they showed was using Copilot as a voice-driven assistant that helps you cooperatively play Minecraft. The game still gets the entire GPU for graphics because Copilot is running on the NPU.

Read More 

Scarlett Johannson, in a statement released to several media outlets:

Last September, I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to
hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system. He told me that
he felt that by my voicing the system, I could bridge the gap
between tech companies and creatives and help consumers to feel
comfortable with the seismic shift concerning humans and AI. He
said he felt that my voice would be comforting to people.

After much consideration and for personal reasons, I declined the
offer. Nine months later, my friends, family and the general
public all noted how much the newest system named “Sky” sounded
like me.

When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered and in
disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so
eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets
could not tell the difference. Mr. Altman even insinuated that the
similarity was intentional, tweeting a single word “her” – a
reference to the film in which I voiced a chat system, Samantha,
who forms an intimate relationship with a human.

Two days before the ChatGPT 4.0 demo was released, Mr. Altman
contacted my agent, asking me to reconsider. Before we could
connect, the system was out there.

At 11:30pm PT last night, OpenAI tweeted:

We’ve heard questions about how we chose the voices in ChatGPT,
especially Sky. We are working to pause the use of Sky while we
address them.

They’ve “heard questions”.

This plays into every bad stereotype about Silicon Valley “tech bros”. I mean, if they had never contacted Johansson and simply hired an actress who sounds like her, to some degree, that’d be one thing. But to negotiate with her to provide her voice officially, and go ahead with a soundalike after she turned down the offer? Some choice: work with them or get ripped off. How in the world did Sam Altman expect to get away with this? One can only presume Altman expected Johannson to roll over, but why would he expect that? She’s the highest-grossing actress in the history of Hollywood, and Hollywood talent isn’t known for rolling over.

 ★ 

Scarlett Johannson, in a statement released to several media outlets:

Last September, I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to
hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system. He told me that
he felt that by my voicing the system, I could bridge the gap
between tech companies and creatives and help consumers to feel
comfortable with the seismic shift concerning humans and AI. He
said he felt that my voice would be comforting to people.

After much consideration and for personal reasons, I declined the
offer. Nine months later, my friends, family and the general
public all noted how much the newest system named “Sky” sounded
like me.

When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered and in
disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so
eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets
could not tell the difference. Mr. Altman even insinuated that the
similarity was intentional, tweeting a single word “her” – a
reference to the film in which I voiced a chat system, Samantha,
who forms an intimate relationship with a human.

Two days before the ChatGPT 4.0 demo was released, Mr. Altman
contacted my agent, asking me to reconsider. Before we could
connect, the system was out there.

At 11:30pm PT last night, OpenAI tweeted:

We’ve heard questions about how we chose the voices in ChatGPT,
especially Sky. We are working to pause the use of Sky while we
address them.

They’ve “heard questions”.

This plays into every bad stereotype about Silicon Valley “tech bros”. I mean, if they had never contacted Johansson and simply hired an actress who sounds like her, to some degree, that’d be one thing. But to negotiate with her to provide her voice officially, and go ahead with a soundalike after she turned down the offer? Some choice: work with them or get ripped off. How in the world did Sam Altman expect to get away with this? One can only presume Altman expected Johannson to roll over, but why would he expect that? She’s the highest-grossing actress in the history of Hollywood, and Hollywood talent isn’t known for rolling over.

Read More 

Justine Calma, writing for The Verge:

Microsoft’s producing a lot more planet-heating pollution now
than it did when it made a bold climate pledge back in
2020. Its greenhouse gas emissions were actually around 30
percent higher in fiscal year 2023, showing how hard it could be
for the company to meet climate goals as it simultaneously races
to be a leader in AI.

Training and running AI models is an increasingly energy-hungry
endeavor, and the impact that’s having on the climate is just
starting to come into view. Microsoft’s latest sustainability
report is a good case study in the conundrum facing big tech
companies that made a slew of climate pledges in recent years but
could wind up polluting more as they turn their focus to
AI].

The Verge ran this under the headline “Microsoft’s AI Obsession Is Jeopardizing Its Climate Ambitions”, which I think correctly pegs Microsoft’s priorities. I wonder whether for Apple the problem is flipped, and Apple’s climate obsession is jeopardizing their AI ambitions? Apple has not backed off one iota from the goal it declared in 2020 to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030. At the time, the Apple Car struck me as the biggest obstacle to that goal. That’s not a problem now that they’ve cancelled Project Titan. But AI strikes me as the new biggest obstacle — a wildcard industry change they didn’t foresee in 2020.

 ★ 

Justine Calma, writing for The Verge:

Microsoft’s producing a lot more planet-heating pollution now
than it did when it made a bold climate pledge back in
2020. Its greenhouse gas emissions were actually around 30
percent higher in fiscal year 2023, showing how hard it could be
for the company to meet climate goals as it simultaneously races
to be a leader in AI.

Training and running AI models is an increasingly energy-hungry
endeavor, and the impact that’s having on the climate is just
starting to come into view. Microsoft’s latest sustainability
report is a good case study in the conundrum facing big tech
companies that made a slew of climate pledges in recent years but
could wind up polluting more as they turn their focus to
AI].

The Verge ran this under the headline “Microsoft’s AI Obsession Is Jeopardizing Its Climate Ambitions”, which I think correctly pegs Microsoft’s priorities. I wonder whether for Apple the problem is flipped, and Apple’s climate obsession is jeopardizing their AI ambitions? Apple has not backed off one iota from the goal it declared in 2020 to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030. At the time, the Apple Car struck me as the biggest obstacle to that goal. That’s not a problem now that they’ve cancelled Project Titan. But AI strikes me as the new biggest obstacle — a wildcard industry change they didn’t foresee in 2020.

Read More 

Re: my idle speculation on rumors of a more expensive, thinner-than-ever iPhone 17 model slated for 2025, Ryan Jones writes:

For maybe the first time, I suspect you’re off.

They tried upmarket, iPhone X, it worked. They tried Mini, not
enough sales. They tried Plus, not enough sales. Pro Max became
most popular.

So what do you do?

Make the Pro Max even bigger (they are, this year, 6.7″ → 6.9″)
cut the “extra” non-Pro phone, smaller didn’t work, bigger
didn’t work
go up market again

Thus:

iPhone 18 (6.1″)
iPhone 18 Pro (6.1″)
iPhone 18 Pro Max (6.9″)
iPhone “Ultra” (6.7″)

Oh, I like this thinking a lot. It fits with Apple’s historic strategy. When they try new things and they aren’t hits, they move on. The iPhone 5C was a one-off — no more colorful “beautifully, unapologetically plastic” iPhones. The iPhone Mini only lasted two years (iPhone 12 and 13), and these rumors suggest the iPhone Plus will only last three (iPhones 14, 15, and this year’s upcoming 16).

But when iPhone models prove popular, Apple doesn’t sweep them away. The revolutionary iPhone X, notably, appeared alongside the decidedly evolutionary iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, all three of which phones sported the then-new A11 Bionic chip. Two years ago Apple added the Ultra to the Apple Watch lineup, but only eliminated the titanium “Edition” models of the traditional Watches. It makes all the sense in the world that Apple might create a four-model iPhone exactly like Jones suggests: keep the regular-sized standard iPhone, keep the Pro and Pro Max, and add a new, thinner-than-ever, more-expensive-than-ever, “Ultra” model at the top. Going upmarket is a strategy that has worked every time they’ve tried in the past. If they sell $2000+ iPads, why not sell $2000+ iPhones? iPhones are more important to more people than any device Apple makes.

Spitball: So how could Apple make an iPhone so thin that, like the new iPad Pros, it’s the first thing people notice about the device? How about getting rid the glass back? Make the back aluminum or titanium, increasing rigidity, decreasing weight, and eliminating a point of failure for drops. This would require a new method for inductive charging — the whole reason all high-end phones, not just iPhones, have glass backs is that inductive Qi charging doesn’t pass through metal. Maybe something more like MagSafe on MacBooks?

The thinnest iPhone to date was 2014’s iPhone 6, at 6.9mm (not including camera lenses).

 ★ 

Re: my idle speculation on rumors of a more expensive, thinner-than-ever iPhone 17 model slated for 2025, Ryan Jones writes:

For maybe the first time, I suspect you’re off.

They tried upmarket, iPhone X, it worked. They tried Mini, not
enough sales. They tried Plus, not enough sales. Pro Max became
most popular.

So what do you do?

Make the Pro Max even bigger (they are, this year, 6.7″ → 6.9″)
cut the “extra” non-Pro phone, smaller didn’t work, bigger
didn’t work
go up market again

Thus:

iPhone 18 (6.1″)
iPhone 18 Pro (6.1″)
iPhone 18 Pro Max (6.9″)
iPhone “Ultra” (6.7″)

Oh, I like this thinking a lot. It fits with Apple’s historic strategy. When they try new things and they aren’t hits, they move on. The iPhone 5C was a one-off — no more colorful “beautifully, unapologetically plastic” iPhones. The iPhone Mini only lasted two years (iPhone 12 and 13), and these rumors suggest the iPhone Plus will only last three (iPhones 14, 15, and this year’s upcoming 16).

But when iPhone models prove popular, Apple doesn’t sweep them away. The revolutionary iPhone X, notably, appeared alongside the decidedly evolutionary iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, all three of which phones sported the then-new A11 Bionic chip. Two years ago Apple added the Ultra to the Apple Watch lineup, but only eliminated the titanium “Edition” models of the traditional Watches. It makes all the sense in the world that Apple might create a four-model iPhone exactly like Jones suggests: keep the regular-sized standard iPhone, keep the Pro and Pro Max, and add a new, thinner-than-ever, more-expensive-than-ever, “Ultra” model at the top. Going upmarket is a strategy that has worked every time they’ve tried in the past. If they sell $2000+ iPads, why not sell $2000+ iPhones? iPhones are more important to more people than any device Apple makes.

Spitball: So how could Apple make an iPhone so thin that, like the new iPad Pros, it’s the first thing people notice about the device? How about getting rid the glass back? Make the back aluminum or titanium, increasing rigidity, decreasing weight, and eliminating a point of failure for drops. This would require a new method for inductive charging — the whole reason all high-end phones, not just iPhones, have glass backs is that inductive Qi charging doesn’t pass through metal. Maybe something more like MagSafe on MacBooks?

The thinnest iPhone to date was 2014’s iPhone 6, at 6.9mm (not including camera lenses).

Read More 

Apple, last week:

Pathways are simple and easy-to-navigate collections of the
videos, documentation, and resources you’ll need to start building
great apps and games. They’re the perfect place to begin your
Apple developer journey — all you need is a Mac and an idea.

Mildly interesting to me that this was announced in May, not at WWDC.

 ★ 

Apple, last week:

Pathways are simple and easy-to-navigate collections of the
videos, documentation, and resources you’ll need to start building
great apps and games. They’re the perfect place to begin your
Apple developer journey — all you need is a Mac and an idea.

Mildly interesting to me that this was announced in May, not at WWDC.

Read More 

MacRumors, quoting Apple’s own release notes (which at this writing are not yet on the web):

This update provides important bug fixes and addresses a rare
issue where photos that experienced database corruption could
reappear in the Photos library even if they were deleted.

That’s a nasty bug, so it’s no surprise that 17.5.1 is here just one week after 17.5.0.

Last week MacRumors also reported on a claim that iOS 17.5 was resurfacing photos on devices that had been wiped and resold (or given away), but that was an extraordinary claim that didn’t jibe with our understanding of how “wiping” an iOS device works. All storage on iOS devices is encrypted, and when you wipe the device (Settings → General → Transfer or Reset iPhone/iPad → Erase All Content and Settings), the encryption key is destroyed. The system doesn’t, and doesn’t need to, overwrite the storage with 0’s or random bits. It just destroys the encryption key from the Secure Enclave rendering the data already written to storage unrecoverable. That report was based on a single post on Reddit, but that Reddit post has since been deleted. (MacRumors has an update appended to that report, but I think they should move that update to the top of the post, not the bottom. All evidence suggests that it was a false alarm.)

 ★ 

MacRumors, quoting Apple’s own release notes (which at this writing are not yet on the web):

This update provides important bug fixes and addresses a rare
issue where photos that experienced database corruption could
reappear in the Photos library even if they were deleted.

That’s a nasty bug, so it’s no surprise that 17.5.1 is here just one week after 17.5.0.

Last week MacRumors also reported on a claim that iOS 17.5 was resurfacing photos on devices that had been wiped and resold (or given away), but that was an extraordinary claim that didn’t jibe with our understanding of how “wiping” an iOS device works. All storage on iOS devices is encrypted, and when you wipe the device (Settings → General → Transfer or Reset iPhone/iPad → Erase All Content and Settings), the encryption key is destroyed. The system doesn’t, and doesn’t need to, overwrite the storage with 0’s or random bits. It just destroys the encryption key from the Secure Enclave rendering the data already written to storage unrecoverable. That report was based on a single post on Reddit, but that Reddit post has since been deleted. (MacRumors has an update appended to that report, but I think they should move that update to the top of the post, not the bottom. All evidence suggests that it was a false alarm.)

Read More