Tag: executives
Apple Pencil Executives Discuss New Hover Features in iPadOS 16.4
Apple Director of Input Experience Leslie Ikemoto and Apple Director of Platform Product Marketing Stephen Tonna spoke with TechCrunch about the hover update. Using Procreate as an example, Ikemoto said that users can now see exactly where a mark will appear when the Apple Pencil is set on the display.
“If you look at Procreate, they have the pencil brush, which is small and thin when you’re perpendicular to the display. With Tilt and Azimuth, Procreate can render an exact outline of the mark that you’re going to make when you set down your pencil brush, and that’s a huge accelerator for their users.
Tonna said that Apple is “always listening to customer feedback” and also “building things our customers didn’t even think of.” The Apple Pencil team also uses what it builds, participating in “Inktober” every October. All of the team will draw and paint during the month, even those without notable artistic skill.
The new hover functionality works in native Apple features like Markup, as well as in third-party apps like Procreate. “We wanted hover to be as easy to adapt as possible,” said Ikemoto, which is why hover was designed to use APIs that had already been used for the Magic Keyboard Trackpad. This allows hover to work automatically for any app that already supported UI pointer interaction, with further refinement possible through the UI hover gesture recognizer.
For those unfamiliar with hover, it is an M2 iPad Pro exclusive feature. It allows an Apple Pencil 2 to be held up to 12 millimeters above the M2 iPad Pro for a more seamless transition when stopping and starting on a digital canvas.
More information about Apple’s perspective on hover can be found in TechCrunch‘s full interview.
This article, “Apple Pencil Executives Discuss New Hover Features in iPadOS 16.4” first appeared on MacRumors.com
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Apple Reportedly Demoed Mixed-Reality Headset to Executives in the Steve Jobs Theater Last Week
In the latest edition of his “Power On” newsletter, Gurman explained that the “momentous gathering” is a “key milestone” ahead of the headset’s public announcement planned for June. The event was intended to rally Apple’s top members of staff around the company’s next major platform.
Senior Apple executives have apparently gotten a peek at the headset every year since 2018, but these demonstrations were discreet looks at the project’s progress rather than showcases of the complete device. Situated at the Steve Jobs Theater, the latest preview was reportedly a far more significant event, being “polished, glitzy, and exciting.”
While anticipation of the device’s launch is growing inside Apple, Gurman added that the device is likely to launch with several potential issues:
Moreover, the device will start at around $3,000, lack a clear killer app, require an external battery that will need to be replaced every couple of hours and use a design that some testers have deemed uncomfortable. It’s also likely to launch with limited media content.
As a result, Apple executives are said to be “striking a realistic tone within the company” with the understanding that “this isn’t going to be a hit product right out of the gate,” potentially following a similar trajectory as the Apple Watch instead.
The first version of the device “will look like a dud next to the company’s existing products,” Gurman believes, but it is still “likely to make Apple the market leader in mixed reality within a few months.” Executives expect consumer interest to grow as subsequent iterations of the headset launch at lower price points in the future.
This article, “Apple Reportedly Demoed Mixed-Reality Headset to Executives in the Steve Jobs Theater Last Week” first appeared on MacRumors.com
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: This Facebook executive’s $4 million stock sale could be another sign of Meta’s rebound
Apple Executives Discuss M2 Chips, Gaming on Mac, Intel and More
With the followup to the M1 chip line, Millet said that Apple did not want to set a precedent of a few percentage points of gain with each new chip generation. Instead, the company aimed to push to the limits of technology as far as it could.
“The M2 family was really now about maintaining that leadership position by pushing, again, to the limits of technology. We don’t leave things on the table,” says Millet. “We don’t take a 20% bump and figure out how to spread it over three years…figure out how to eke out incremental gains. We take it all in one year; we just hit it really hard. That’s not what happens in the rest of the industry or historically.”
Borchers said that by moving Mac chip design in house, Apple is able to bring silicon, software, and hardware together without relying on outside vendors. Being able to work alongside designers, the hardware team, and the software team “makes all the difference” in Apple’s ability to “really target” and add “things that matter” to Macs.
On the topic of Apple’s former partnership with Intel, Millet and Borchers praised the company’s willingness to accommodate Apple’s needs, with Millet also suggesting that the relationship between Apple and Intel ultimately benefited Apple’s competitors.
“Intel was a great partner through the years where we shipped the Intel machines. They were very responsive; they really actually were inspired by the direction that Apple pushed them. And I think our products benefited from that interaction. Of course, our competitors’ products benefited from that interaction as well sometimes,” notes Millet.
As for gaming on the Mac, Borchers says that Apple feels gaming is getting better with each M-series chip release. He said that Apple is adding in new APIs and expanding Metal with Metal 3, so there’s “tremendous opportunity” for game makers.
Apple plans to continue to look at chip configurations and components through a gaming lens, and Millet said that while Apple is taking a “long view” on turning the Mac into a gaming platform, work began with the first days of the Apple silicon transition.
“The story starts many years ago, when we were imagining this transition. Gamers are a serious bunch. And I don’t think we’re going to fool anybody by saying that overnight we’re going to make Mac a great gaming platform. We’re going to take a long view on this.”
According to Millet, Apple is working to build an installed base of strong GPUs. Apple wants the full Mac lineup to have “very capable GPUs,” from the MacBook Air to the Mac Studio with M1 Ultra. He also believes that developers haven’t yet adapted to M-series chips. “Game developers have never seen 96 gigabytes of graphics memory available to them now, on the M2 Max,” said Miller. I think they’re trying to get their heads around it, because the possibilities are unusual.”
Panzarino’s full interview, which can be read over at TechCrunch, covers additional topics that include the transition to Apple silicon, how the iPad Pro led to Apple’s Mac chips, the relationship between teams, optimizations in design cycles with Apple silicon, the best time to buy a Mac, and the value of the Mac mini.
This article, “Apple Executives Discuss M2 Chips, Gaming on Mac, Intel and More” first appeared on MacRumors.com
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Report: 78% of executives adopted cloud, but not all are seeing value
Inside the Frantic Texts Exchanged by Crypto Executives as FTX Collapsed
Mr. Zhao was concerned that Mr. Bankman-Fried was orchestrating crypto trades that could send the industry into a meltdown. “Stop now, don’t cause more damage,” Mr. Zhao wrote in a group chat with Mr. Bankman-Fried and other crypto executives on Nov. 10. “The more damage you do now, the more jail time.” FTX and its sister hedge fund, Alameda Research, had just collapsed after a run on deposits exposed an $8 billion hole in the exchange’s accounts. The implosion unleashed a crypto crisis, as firms with ties to FTX teetered on the brink of bankruptcy, calling the future of the entire industry into question.
The series of about a dozen group texts between Mr. Zhao and Mr. Bankman-Fried on Nov. 10, which were obtained by The New York Times, show that key crypto leaders feared that the situation could get even worse. And their frantic communications offer a rare glimpse into the unusual way business is conducted behind the scenes in the industry, with at least three top officials from rival companies exchanging messages in a group chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal. The texts also show that industry leaders were acutely aware that the actions of a single firm or fluctuations in the value of one virtual currency could destabilize the whole industry. The exchanges became increasingly tense as Mr. Bankman-Fried and Mr. Zhao traded barbs.
Earlier that week, Mr. Zhao had agreed to buy FTX and save the exchange, before backing out of the deal. In the Nov. 10 texts, he appeared certain that FTX would not survive, and concerned that it could bring the rest of the industry down with it…. In the Nov. 10 texts, Mr. Zhao specifically accused Mr. Bankman-Fried of using his hedge fund to drive down the price of Tether, a so-called stablecoin whose price is designed to remain at $1. According to messages seen by The Times and people familiar with the matter, the group chat included several other prominent crypto executives, including Jesse Powell, a founder of the crypto exchange Kraken, and Paolo Ardoino, the chief technology officer of Tether, the company that issues the stablecoin of the same name.
Tether is a linchpin of crypto trading worldwide, commonly used by digital asset enthusiasts to conduct transactions. Industry insiders have long feared that if Tether’s price fell, it would cause a domino effect that might bring the industry to its knees. (Tether ultimately did not end up losing its $1 peg.)
30-year-old Bankman-Fried told the Times that Mr. Zhao’s claims were “absurd…. Trades of that size would not make a material impact on Tether’s pricing, and to my knowledge neither myself nor Alameda has ever attempted to intentionally depeg Tether or any other stablecoins… I have made a number of mistakes over the past year but this is not one of them.”
A spokeswoman for Tether told the Times they’d “demonstrated its resilience to attacks,” adding that FTX’s actions “don’t reflect the ethos and commitment of an entire industry.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
UK Internet Watchdog Increasingly Led by Ex-Big Tech Executives
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
PwC report: 81% of executives anticipate a recession within the next six months
More Twitter privacy and security executives abandon ship
It’s a day ending in the letter “y” which inevitably means there’s more drama at Twitter. Chief information security officer Lea Kissner, chief privacy officer Damien Kieran and chief compliance officer Marianne Fogarty have all quit, according to The Verge. The report suggests that the company’s engineers will now be responsible for ensuring compliance with regulations. Twitter is currently subject to a Federal Trade Commission consent order, which includes certain privacy and security requirements.
“I’ve made the hard decision to leave Twitter,” Kissner wrote in a tweet. “I’ve had the opportunity to work with amazing people and I’m so proud of the privacy, security and IT teams and the work we’ve done.”
I’ve made the hard decision to leave Twitter. I’ve had the opportunity to work with amazing people and I’m so proud of the privacy, security, and IT teams and the work we’ve done.
I’m looking forward to figuring out what’s next, starting with my reviews for @USENIXSecurity 😁
— Lea Kissner (@LeaKissner) November 10, 2022
The departures will surely have a significant impact on Twitter’s security and privacy teams. To that end, The Verge obtained a Slack message purportedly shared by a Twitter lawyer, which notes that engineers have been asked to “self-certify” that they’re complying with FTC requirements and other laws. “This will put huge amount of personal, professional and legal risk onto engineers,” the message reads. “I anticipate that all of you will [be] pressured by management into pushing out changes that will likely lead to major incidents.” The lawyer, who urged workers to seek whistleblower protection if they felt the need to, warned that such changes are “extremely dangerous for our users.”
The FTC consent order is part of a settlement Twitter reached with the agency in May. One of the conditions requires the company to employ a “comprehensive privacy and information security program” to examine new products for privacy and security risks. The lawyer noted that if Twitter violates the consent order, it could be on the hook for “billions of dollars” in fines, which would be “extremely detrimental to Twitter’s longevity as a platform.”
This week, the company revamped the Twitter Blue service and started allowing users to obtain a checkmark (previously used to denote that an account was verified) for $8 per month. That’s already created a minefield of impersonation, spoof accounts and scams.
A Twitter employee suggested to The Verge that the rushed rollout of the paid checkmark scheme, as mandated by new owner Elon Musk, bypassed the typical privacy review process. “The people normally tasked with this stuff were given little notice, little time, and [it’s] unreasonable to think [the privacy review] was comprehensive,” said the employee, who noted that none of the team’s recommendations were put into effect before the new Twitter Blue went live. That team was only able to review possible risks the night before Twitter rolled out the retooled service.
“No CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees,” Douglas Farrar, the FTC’s director of public affairs, told The Washington Post. “Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are prepared to use them.”
Engadget has contacted Twitter for comment.