Year: 2018

Big news for CarPlay, Apple’s in-car service that lets a vehicle’s display act as a controller and ‘reader’ of your iPhone. At WWCD, Apple today announced that it will now let third-party navigation and mapping apps to work with the service starting with iOS 12. Up to now, Apple only allowed its own mapping app, Maps, to work over CarPlay, but now you can use Waze, Google Maps, Here, or whatever other app you might want to use to get from A to B.

The change marks a big shift for Apple, which is well known for favoring its own native apps and generally a more tightly controlled ecosystem on iOS and across devices. But Maps hasn’t been the most popular mapping app by some measure, even for users of iOS. This is in a sense is a tacit acknowledgement that iPhone owners are using a wide variety of other services, and so to get CarPlay used more, this needed to be enabled.

Apple says that most major vehicle manufacturers are partnering with Apple to incorporate CarPlay, which gives iPhone users in-car access to its phone services, Apple Music, iMessage, Apple Books (new name!) and podcasts, along with a selection of third-party apps like Spotify, Google Play Music, NPR and iHeartRadio, as well as Siri support.

It’s not clear why Apple didn’t extend third-party support for other mapping and navigation apps until now. Perhaps it was to sweeten the deal for more people to use its own Maps app.

It’s not clear how many users there are of CarPlay, nor how many cars are now equipped to work with it, but the hope, it seems, is that with increased usefulness, now the service will see more adoption.

Apple’s Craig Federighi announced that Apple was doubling down on performance with the upcoming release of iOS 12 at the WWDC event in San Jose, Calif. today.

What’s more, he said, the company would be making these changes to the full range of iOS devices going back to 2013. “And so for iOS 12, we are doubling down on performance from top to bottom making improvements to make your device faster and more responsive. And because we want these changes to be available the full range of our customers, iOS 12 will be available on all the same devices as iOS 11,” Federighi told the WWDC audience.

Perhaps because customers were unhappy to learn about the battery issues with older iOS devices Federighi stressed that Apple has focussed these performance increases on older devices, giving people with older iPhones, the maximum lift. Using the iPhone 6 as an example, he gave some figures about performance increase, stressing that it was still early days. (As an iPhone 6 user, I was listening carefully.)

“Now on that device, iOS delivers a number of improvements. Across common operations you’ll see that apps launch up to 40% faster, the keyboard can come up to 50% faster and you can slide to take a photo at up to 70% faster,” he said.

But he said, the biggest focus, and one all iPhone users can appreciate, is that they are working to optimize performance when it’s under load. As Federighi said that’s when you need performance the most and where iOS 12 really shines.

“We put iOS 12 through our stress tests and we saw in those conditions share sheet coming up twice as fast, and apps launching twice as fast. These are big, big improvements,” he stressed.

Lastly, Apple also optimized iOS 12 at the chip level working with the chip team to optimize performance, while taking battery life into account. If you keep the power pedal to the metal for too long, you suck battery, but Apple is trying to find that perfect balance of power and battery life in iOS 12.

“CPUs traditionally respond to an increased demand for performance by slowly ramping up their clock speed. Well, now in iOS 12, we’re much smarter. When we detect that you need a performance lift when you’re scrolling and launching an app, we ramped up processor performance instantly to its highest state delivering high performance and a ramp it down just as fast to preserve battery life,” he said.

All of this will be available when iOS 12 is released later this year.

Apple began WWDC talking all about the update it’s delivering to its augmented reality platform, introducing ARKit 2 with iOS 12, which brings several big tech upgrades.

The company didn’t get a chance to showcase all of the things it’s adding to ARKit, but did touch on the big additions, which include improved face tracking, realistic rendering, 3D object detection, persistent experiences and shared experiences.

Multiplayer is a big update for AR at Apple; the multiplayer addition will be big for gaming and Apple will certainly try to bring the functionality to other categories moving forward.

At Google I/O, we saw a new technology called Cloud Anchors, which matches up what a pair of smartphone users are seeing in the cloud to allow for multiplayer. It’s not clear how Apple is doing this, but what’s interesting about Google’s approach is that Cloud Anchors allows for multiplayer across platforms so Android and iOS users can pair up easily, as well.

Apple released ARKit one year ago. The developer platform is based on technology that synthesized the relationship between the inertial sensors of Apple devices and their cameras to track their position in space. This positional tracking allows users to not only move around digital objects but fix those objects to physical places in an environment.

Microsoft may have just acquired developers’ favorite code repository GitHub, but it is Apple where many of them are making a lot of money at the moment. Today at WWDC, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook announced that there are now 20 million registered developers on iOS, and collectively they have made about $100 billion in revenues, with the App Store bringing in some 500 million visitors per week.

“We’re also happy to announce that this week we’re going to achieve another huge milestone,” Cook said in his presentation. “The money that developers have earned through the App Store will top $100 billion.”

The figures underscore how Apple’s attention has continued to swing more firmly into its developer ecosystem and app marketplace, which is becoming a stronger engine of revenue generation as overall smartphone purchasing slows down in more saturated markets.

He also said that Swift, the programming language Apple developed and uses for its apps, is also picking up some strong momentum.

“It’s the fastest growing programming language out there,” he said. “Apple developers are using it in huge numbers, in fact over 350,000 apps have been written in Swift in the app store. We believe that coding is an essential skill and believe it should be offered by every school in the world. Learning to code has so many benefits, it developers problem solving, critical thinking skills.”

Apple announced the next version of iOS at its WWDC developer conference. While iOS 12 won’t be available before the fall, it’s always interesting to get a sneak peek at the next version of iOS.

Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering Craig Federighi first talked about some numbers. 81 percent of iOS users are currently running iOS 11. 6 percent of Android users are currently on the last version.

“For iOS 12, we’re doubling down on performance,” Federighi said. iOS 12 is going to be available on all devices that currently support iOS 11.

It’s interesting the Federighi talked about iOS 12 on the iPhone 6 Plus. Apps launch 40 percent faster, the keyboard comes up 50 percent faster and opening the camera is 70 percent faster.

You get the idea, the big new feature of iOS 12 is performance and optimization.

But it doesn’t mean that Apple didn’t think about new features. Apple has created a new file format for augmented reality called USDZ. Adobe CTO Abhay Parasnis talked for a couple of minutes to announce that Adobe apps are going to support USDZ.

Apple is launching a new app to educate people about augmented reality. This app is called Measure and works pretty much like popular third-party app MeasureKit. While Apple says USDZ is a file format for augmented reality, Federighi also showed a USDZ 3D file in the middle of an Apple News article.

And the company is also updating ARKit with multiplayer augmented reality. You can get the same augmented reality experience with multiple devices. The company invited Martin Sanders from Lego to talk about ARKit. You can point an iPad at a Lego set to add virtual buildings and objects, and recreate a tiny little city.

“Over a trillion photos are captured on the iPhone each year,” Federighi said. Apple is updating search with iOS 12. While you’ve been able tp search for objects or categories, such as cars, dogs, beach and hiking, it’s been hard to find. Apple is going to add suggestions to improve discovery.

Apple is reusing an Apple Music idea and adding a “For You” tab. It’ll show you old albums, memories, photos with people you care about and more. For You can also suggest you to share photos with friends and family members. When you share them, it looks like it creates a link that you can send in iMessage. The other person will also get a suggestion to share photos back. It’s like shared albums, but a bit refined.

As for Siri, Apple is introducing shortcuts. It’s not just for voice, Apple is also adding shortcuts on the lock screen or in the search screen for instance. If you’re running late for a meeting, you’ll get a suggestion to send a text to the other person. Shortcuts on the lock screen are like app suggestions, but with more specific actions.

Apple will open up shortcuts to third-party developers to store information or set up shortcuts. Developers will be able to put an “Add to Siri” button in their apps. For instance, you can store your flight details under the “flight to Portland” shortcut. So if you ask Siri that phrase, you’ll get your flight details.

The Workflow team has been working on the Shortcuts app. It’s just like the automation app Workflow that Apple acquired a couple of years ago. But you can also configure connected devices using Shortcuts, and trigger shortcuts using the HomePod. So there you go, Apple is back in the voice assistant game with this new ecosystem of shortcuts.

Apple is also redesigning Apple News and the Stocks app. There’s a new sidebar in the News app to improve navigation. You’ll also get a sort of Yahoo Finance in the Stocks app with share prices, headlines, after-hour pricing. The Stocks app is coming to the iPad too.

As for iBooks, rumors were right. Apple is adding audio books to iBooks (and removing them from the Music app). And the company is also rebranding iBooks to Apple Books. Finally, Apple is adding support for third-party navigation apps in CarPlay.

After this quick rundown of Apple’s new apps, Federighi presented the other pillar of iOS 12 — smarter notifications, do not disturb improvements. If you turn on Do Not Disturb at night, you won’t get a wall of notifications if you want to check the time in the middle of the night. You can also set Do Not Disturb until you move to another place.

And developers cheered like crazy when Federighi presented grouped notifications. It’s a good way to stack similar notifications from the same app. You’ll be able to configure your notifications directly from the home screen.

Many accused Apple of not paying attention to the addictive aspect of smartphones. With Screen Time, your phone can give you an overview of things you do with your phone so that you waste less time mindlessly scrolling through feeds. You can also set up a time limit to receive a notification when you’ve been on Instagram for a while for instance. Obviously, Screen Tim means better parental controls. You can limit some apps, track your kid’s usage and more.

But let’s talk about the most important feature of iOS — animojis. Apple is adding new characters — a ghost, a koala, a tiger, a T-rex. Your phone will now track your tongue.

More importantly, you’ll be able to create your own Memoji. Apple is basically copying Snap’s Bitmoji (or the Xbox avatars or Nintendo’s Miis…). You can create your own avatar, add accessories and change clothes.

In Messages, there are new camera effects that work a bit like Instagram’s or Messenger’s filters, blending your Memoji on top of your face.

Switching gear a bit, Apple is overhauling FaceTime. You can now create a FaceTime group with 32 people. You can now switch from an iMessage conversation to a video chat without having to open another app. This is long overdue, and Houseparty is not going to be happy. It’ll also work on macOS and on the Apple Watch for the audio part.

The news that Facebook offered to partners until just recently a form of the friend-scraping capability it claimed to have discontinued back in 2014 has, within hours, brought rebuke and a call to action from the House of Representatives.

“It’s deeply concerning that Facebook continues to withhold critical details about the information it has and shares with others. This is just the latest example of Facebook only coming forward when forced to do so by a media outlet,” reads a statement from Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ).

Indeed, the question of whether and how a user’s friends’ data was being shared with third parties was brought up during Zuckerberg’s testimony. It is, after all, likely that this is the vector by which millions of users’ data was exfiltrated by agents both malicious and benign.

In the same line of thinking as “don’t talk to the cops,” the CEO was almost certainly instructed not to volunteer any disadvantageous information unless directly asked. Therefore, it should surprise no one that he failed to mention that there existed until quite recently a similar program allowing third parties to collect data on unsuspecting friends.

It’s telling of Facebook’s current predicament that before they can adequately answer some questions, even more arise.

“Our Committee is also still waiting for a lot of answers from Facebook to questions Mr. Zuckerberg could not or would not answer at our hearing,” Pallone said.

He also called for the FTC to get involved: “The Federal Trade Commission must conduct a full review to determine if the consent decree was violated.” I’ve asked if the Representative will be appealing to the FTC directly, and/or whether any existing investigation (the FTC is quiet about these) will be affected.

Pallone is just one among hundreds of senators and representatives, but he is one of the crew responsible for the pending Congressional Review Act rollback of the FCC’s new, weaker net neutrality rules. So it’s not a surprise to see him weigh in quickly on another tech issue. Here’s hoping it helps keep Facebook accountable.

G Suite is about to get a slew of new integrations.

Hangouts Meet, for example, is Google’s designated video conferencing solution for businesses, but while it’s easy enough to use, most businesses have already invested in similar solutions from the likes of Polycom and Cisco — or they have opted for Microsoft’s Skype for Business as their go-to service. Soon, however, businesses will get more options as Google today announced that anyone on those systems will now be able to join a Hangouts Meet video call, as well. These integrations will go live in the coming weeks.

“Nothing’s more frustrating than hosting a meeting and having trouble getting people to join because of issues with technology—it can interrupt workflows and slow down productivity,” Rany Ng, Google’s director of product management for G Suite, writes in today’s announcement. “We want to make it easier for businesses to use meeting solutions, like Hangouts Meet, without worrying about compatibility with existing equipment.”

Google built this project in partnership with Pexip, a company that specializes in making meeting platform interoperable. Pexip’s specialty is Skype for Business, but for this product, the company is clearly branching out and adding support for Hangouts Meet, too.

In addition to allowing users from more hardware platforms to join Meet calls, Google also today announced that it is making it easier for third-party conferencing services to integrate their services deeper into Google Calendar. So if you are using Webex, for example, you’ll be able to join a Webex call right from Calendar with just a single click. Google says Arkadin, GoToMeeting, LogMeIn, Dialpad, RingCentral, Vidyo and Vonage are currently building similar calendar plugins for their users.

And if you need a room to take those calls, Google also today announced it is making it easier to view and book rooms that are stored in Exchange and Office 365 in Google Calendar. This integration will only go live in a few months, though.

That’s not all of the integration news today, though. Google is also making it easier to import data from SAP’s enterprise resource planning tools into Google Sheets and analyze it there.

French startup Lendix has raised a new funding round of $37 million (€32 million). With this new influx of cash, the startup has one goal in mind. It wants to become the leading lending marketplace of Continental Europe.

Idinvest and Allianz are leading the round, with CIR SpA (De Benedetti’s holding firm) also participating. Existing investors Partech, CNP Assurances, Decaux Frères Investissements and Matmut are also participating once again.

As of today, people living in France, Spain and Italy can sign up to lend money to companies established in those three countries. But the startup is already working hard to expand to the Netherlands and Germany before the end of the year. Next year, Lendix plans to operate in 7 countries.

And it seems like it’s becoming easier to launch new markets. There are now quite a few users and institutional investors on the platform. Lendix doesn’t need to attract Dutch users to start lending to Dutch companies. French, Italian and Spanish users are already willing to put some money in Dutch companies. It’s a true European user base because everybody uses the same currency.

With today’s funding round, it’s going to be easier to launch in Germany. “When you want to open in Germany — and that is our current plan — it’s harder to recruit if you don’t have a German brand name behind you,” co-founder and CEO Olivier Goy told me.

That’s why Allianz is going to be more than just a financial backer. For instance, the insurance company is going to promote Lendix to its corporate clients so that they think about Lendix if they need to borrow some money.

It’s another proof that Lendix doesn’t want to be a French company that operates in other countries. The company also has opened an office in Madrid and another one in Milan with local teams.

Lendix is still a drop in the bucket compared to traditional bank loans. But the company wants to differentiate its product offering from regular banks as much as possible.

Right now, when a company requests a loan, the company’s algorithms are going to work on a basic credit scoring. After that, somebody calls the company to ask a few questions. The Lendix team can focus on more specific information.

“We also have developed a tool called Iris,” CTO Benjamin Netter told me. “It is going to become the biggest intelligence database for European companies.”

France is leading the way when it comes to open data. You can now access the registry of commerce, the identification number database and important incorporation events. But it’s a mess if you want to access this data. There are different file formats, and the same database uses different fields depending on the region of France.

Lendix has been parsing all this data to turn it into an actionable database. This way, Lendix can get a clear overview of companies that apply for a loan.

The company doesn’t plan to stop there. You could use Iris to detect some fraud patterns. For instance, a person could keep incorporating new companies and shutting them down quickly.

Eventually, you could reach out to companies before they need to apply for a loan. Netter mentioned a restaurant called Street Bangkok. They’ve opened three restaurants over the past six months. It’s clear that they might need some money at some point to invest in new restaurants. Lendix Iris could spot those patterns.

Lendix is still nowhere near as big as Funding Circle. But the company thinks there’s enough room for multiple players in this space. Both can grow at the same time by competing with traditional banks.

And it starts by being faster than a traditional bank. Companies get a rate within 48 hours. “Our goal is that you should be able to get a rate within half a day,” Goy said. Banks will have a hard time giving you an answer so quickly.

Disclosure: I share a personal connection with an executive at CNP Assurances.

It’s that time again. This morning kicks off Apple’s annual World Wide Developers Conference. It’s a week of programming focused on developers, but this morning’s big event has a little something for everyone. Here’s a quick break down of what we can likely expect when Tim Cook takes the stage this morning.

The keynote will most likely be focused on announcements surrounding iOS 12 and macOS 10.14 — in fact, we got a bit of a preview of the latter over the weekend. WatchOS and HomeKit will probably get some love, as well, along with ARKit, which took center stage at the event, this time last year.

As for hardware — expect Apple to throw us a couple of bones on that front, as well — though the really big announcements around iPhone, iPad and the like, are probably being saved for another day. Beyond that, the sky — or the San Jose Convention Center ceiling, at least — is the limit.

We’ll see you right here at 10AM PT/1PM ET/5PM GMT

Do you have an application that needs a lot of memory? Maybe as much as 12 terabytes of memory? Well, you’re in luck because Microsoft Azure will soon offer virtual machines with just that much RAM, based on Intel’s Xeon Scalable servers.

The company made this announcement in concert with the launch of a number of other virtual machine (VM) types that are specifically geared toward running high-memory workloads — and the standard use cases for this is running the SAP Hana in-memory database service.

So in addition to this massive new 12 TB VM, Microsoft is also launching a new 192 GB machine that extends the lower end of Hana-optimized machines on Azure, as well as a number other Hana options that scale across multiple VMs and can offer combined memory sizes of up to 18 TB.

Another new feature of Azure launching today is Standards SSDs. These will offer Azure users a new option for running entry-level production workloads that require consistent disk performance and throughput without the full price of what are now called “premium SSD.” The Standard SSDs won’t offer the same kind of performance, though, but Microsoft promises that developers will still get improved latency, reliability and scalability as compared to standard hard disks in its cloud.