Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2016/10/friday-morning-news141016/
Following yesterday’s accusations of Siri being dumb, Apple has responded by fixing some of the queries pointed out by Mossberg. Apple also says they focus on Siri improvements that help you accomplish tasks on your iPhone that would otherwise take multiple taps, not answer “long-tail” questions such as “when is the presidential debate”, which requires Siri to know about current events (and know where to get the information requested) in order to give a vaguely sensible answer.
Apple has not moved to acquire Imagination Technologies as per previous rumours, but it has managed to poach their COO along with several other engineers. Speculation from MacRumors says this could be the start of Apple’s own in-house graphics team, given Apple’s penchant for doing its own silicon.
Speaking of acquisitions, Australian startup Sonder could be Apple’s next target. Apple has reportedly shown interest in an e-ink keyboard developed by Sonder, which uses an e-ink display behind the keys in order to change input characters based on language, emoji, or similar. The technology certainly has other potential uses — imagine shortcuts for Final Cut Pro X displayed right on your keyboard, for example.
A study claims the Apple Watch is the most accurate wearable for fitness tracking. Results from an EKG were compared to activity trackers such as the Fitbit Charge HR and a few other trackers I’ve never heard of, but the study did find that wrist-worn trackers were generally less accurate as the intensity of activity increased.
An Apple patent application describes using the heart rate sensor to identify the owner. The title of the patent is “User identification system based on plethysmography”, which certainly fits the criteria of sounding important enough to be believable. If Apple gets the patent and implements it, they may take features as Watch unlocking Macs to the next level.
Somehow, iPads have become the ideal travelling companion. Even though no-one’s using them for actual work, Jason Snell explains that the iPad’s form factor gives it advantages when you’re not doing things like podcasting or writing, although perhaps a hardware keyboard would have made for a better writing experience at the cost of a little portability.
MacStories tells us about Health Importer, an app which moves Apple Health data between devices. If you’re switching between devices and don’t have an iCloud or encrypted iTunes backup, Health Importer looks like a great option to keep your Health data intact.
While iOS 9 introduced actionable notifications, iOS 10 ramps things up. 3D Touch provides a new way of interacting with notifications, even directly from the lock screen, and now even third-party apps can have more complex actions from their lock screen notification.
The newly-renovated Regent Street Apple store in London has been shown off in photos, and it looks pretty slick indeed and in line with recent Apple store redesigns.
A new ad from Apple tells us about the new Apple Music interface as part of iOS 10. The ad tells us about where recommendations are, or how to listen to Beats1 or other radio station.