Top Bananas | Monthly Archives: February 2019

Another Augmented Reality Patent by Apple

Posted on February 26, 2019 by admin Posted in Business, Hardware, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: Apple filed another patent for augmented reality that hints of its future plans.

Augmented reality is already a part of iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad. While augmented reality hasn’t yet become commonly used like location tracking (for getting rides through services like Uber) on the iPhone or real-time health monitoring on the Apple Watch, augmented reality is coming in the form of smart glasses.

Apple’s latest patent highlights how augmented reality could track the location of interesting objects and transpose that information when you walk near it. For outdoor use, this could help you find directions while for indoor use, this could help you find the location of your iPhone or iPad.

Like most patents, this may never become part of a real product, but it shows what Apple is thinking about and where augmented reality will be heading. It will start with the iPhone and iPad and gradually when it becomes more useful, it will migrate to smart glasses. Apple will likely test the concepts for augmented reality on iOS devices. Then when the most practical purpose appears, Apple will introduce smart glasses.

What most companies are doing now is releasing smart glasses and then hoping people will find a use for them, which is backwards thinking. These companies should be thinking of what pressing problem smart glasses can solve and then build smart glasses optimized to solve that particular problem.

Augmented reality is a growing field and will only improve with each passing year. That means augmented reality will become commonplace soon but only when it can solve problems that can’t be solved easily with todays’ technology.

Why Apple is Ignoring the Macintosh

Posted on February 24, 2019 by admin Posted in Business, Hardware Leave a comment

What it is: Apple has been ignoring the Macintosh for years. The reason may be they’re planning to switch processors.

For the past few years, Apple has let their Macintosh lineup lag behind the times. The iMac hasn’t been updated in almost two years, which makes no sense because PC makers such as Dell or Hewlett-Packard can release updated models every few months. Certainly Apple could update the Macintosh at least once a year. That could be extreme incompetence or something else entirely.

That something else will likely be the switch from Intel processors to Apple’s own ARM processors. Already Apple’s latest A-series processor is faster than Intel’s processors and Intel’s constant delays also interrupt Apple’s ability to upgrade the Macintosh, so even Intel expects Apple to transition the Macintosh to ARM processors by 2020.

So that might be the reason why Apple has been dragging their feet on updating the Macintosh. It’s not that they can’t do it; it’s just that they’re too busy working on the transition to ARM processors so they don’t want to work on new Macintosh models when they know a new ARM-based Macintosh is coming soon anyway.

What’s likely to happen is that the Macintosh will become a “pro” model, running Intel processors for developers while the consumer model Macintosh will run ARM-processors for longer battery life. It’s possible that this ARM-based Macintosh will be called something else entirely. That way people won’t get confused trying to run Macintosh programs (designed for Intel processors) on an ARM-based Macintosh.

So the long delay in updating the Macintosh is likely because Apple is planning to make them obsolete soon anyway. Apple is already developing a software framework to allow iOS apps to run on the Macintosh. Most likely an ARM-based computer will be a super portable laptop.

If the lack of updates bothers you, wait if you can. Apple will likely redefine a laptop with a device that runs iOS apps but acts more like a computer. Either that or Apple is really incompetent after all. Which seems most likely?

To read about Apple’s possible plan to switch to ARM-based processors, click here.

How to Fold a Smartphone

Posted on February 22, 2019 by admin Posted in Hardware, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: Foldable smartphones are the future, but which way should they bend?

Samsung recently announced their Galaxy Fold smartphone which bends vertically down the middle from top to bottom and unfolds like a book.

While interesting, the Galaxy Fold is also expensive ($1,980) which will limit it to early adopters while Samsung improves on its design. However if you look at the above two pictures, you can see there are two ways to fold a smartphone.

Samsung Galaxy Fold bends vertically while Apple has filed patents for a smartphone that bends in half or in thirds, but bends horizontally. It may not seem like much of a big deal, but from a technical point of view, it makes a huge difference.

The crease where the phone bends will exhibit repeated stress from opening and bending over and over. That means that hinge is the single most likely point of failure where failure could range from outright breaking to simply affecting the visual quality of the screen in that hinge area.

That’s why a vertical bend (like the Samsung Galaxy Fold) may look good, but creates a large stress area from top to bottom. On the other hand, a horizontal bend mimics the old style flip phones and creates a much smaller crease.

Assuming both creases fail at the same rate, the vertical fold displays the largest point of failure while the horizontal fold displays a far smaller area of failure.

The more area that could fail, the more likely it will fail. That makes the vertical crease the least reliable option from an engineering point of view.

If a phone bends in thirds, that creates two areas of potential failure, which roughly doubles its chance of failure over a phone that bends in half. Therefore a phone that bends in half like a flip phone is probably the best design to minimize stress on the foldable screen.

The hardest part about a foldable screen is making sure the creased area displays images as sharp from day one over the lifetime of the phone, which is typically 2 – 4 years. If creases become noticeable over time, then the foldable phone becomes less valuable solely due to the screen deterioration.

Foldable screens are the future, but the technology must catch up to the point where a screen can bend multiple times over years without ever affecting the visual quality of the screen. When this happens, foldable phones will become the norm. Until then, large screen non-bendable phones will continue to dominate but fade away over time.

To learn more about Apple’s patent filings for foldable phones, click here.

The Foldable Phone

Posted on February 20, 2019 by admin Posted in Business, Hardware, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: Samsung announced a foldable phone that acts as both a smartphone and a tablet.

Samsung announced the Galaxy Fold, a $1,980 smartphone that folds open to provide a 7.3-inch screen that’s comparable to a mini-tablet. While Samsung isn’t the first company to announce a foldable phone, they’re the first major company to do so.

The future of smartphones are foldable phones. As smartphones keep getting bigger, the larger screen makes them difficult to carry easily. Carrying a tablet with a smartphone isn’t practical for most people, so it’s easier just to lug around a large screen smartphone instead.

While the Samsung Galaxy Fold looks impressive, its price is far too high for most people, which will limit its adoption. Having the most advanced technology in the world is useless if people can’t afford to buy them.

If any computer company wanted to sell the fastest computer in the world, it’s easy to build a supercomputer. It’s far more difficult to get more than a handful of people to buy them to make it profitable enough to manufacture.

The Samsung Galaxy Fold is simply a marketing gimmick to lay claim to one of the first foldable smartphones on the market. That’s no different than being one of the first makers of MP3 players or one of the first makers of Blu-ray disc players. It’s nice to be first to offer advanced technology, but what ultimately matters is whether people will use it or not.

Apple is likely developing a foldable phone as well, but they won’t release it until the price comes down. Just as large screen smartphones were once considered luxuries, but are now considered normal, so will foldable smartphones change form luxuries to ordinary items within a few years.

Until that time, the Galaxy Fold will remain an interesting product that was too far ahead of its time to achieve mass adoption. Of course the goal of the Galaxy Fold isn’t to sell many units but to lay claim as one of the first foldable smartphones.

That’s a nice claim to have, but ultimately it’s a meaningless one. Anyone remember the first smartphone that came with a touch screen? (It wasn’t the iPhone.) If nobody remembers the first smartphone with a touch screen, a few years from now, will anyone remember the Galaxy Fold?

Maybe, maybe not. In either case, nobody will buy the Galaxy Fold until the price comes down and the technology becomes cheaper to manufacture. Sometimes being first isn’t an advantage after all.

To learn more about the Galaxy Fold, click here.

Apple Acquires Voice Assistant Startup

Posted on February 17, 2019 by admin Posted in Business, Programming, Software Leave a comment

What it is: Apple acquired Pullstring, a company that lets users create and publish voice-activated apps.

Siri sucks. Despite introducing the world to voice assistants, Siri has constantly lagged behind Amazon’s Alexa. Now Apple is working to fix Siri buy acquiring a company called Pullstring, which lets users create and publish voice-activated apps.

Pullstring’s website claims that their Converse program lets you “Build your conversation visually.” By defining conversation blocks and customizing them, you can define a user’s experience through your voice application.

Instead of dealing with code, Pullstring’s Converse program lets you focus on the overall picture while letting Pullstring’s program take care of the actual voice recognition details. Beyond letting people create voice-activated apps for Siri (and improving Siri’s popularity), Pullstring’s technology will also let developers (hopefully) add voice-activated features to ordinary apps as a supplement.

Right now, Apple offers SiriKit, which lets you add Siri to your apps, but SiriKit is limited to specific domains such as messaging or payments. You can’t customize Siri beyond a limited range of domains that Siri can understand.

Pullstring promises to avoid this and allow developers to creatively add voice recognition to any app simply and easily. This will allow developers to create games that allow voice control in addition to touch control.

For HomePod, Pullstring’s technology allows users to customize Siri on HomePod to allow voice control programming in a simple manner.

Pullstring’s technology likely won’t appear in Apple’s technology any time soon, but expect it to show up in around three years as Apple integrates Pullstring’s technology into their own software framework.

Pullstring’s acquisition is a major one much like Apple’s acquisition of Metaio, which introduced augmented reality. Pullstring will introduce then world to voice-activated programming and app development, and could be as important as Apple’s original HyperCard in letting people create custom programs.

All we have to do is wait a few years to see what happens, but when Apple introduces voice-activated coding, nobody should be surprised.

To learn more about Pullstring, click here.

How To Do Augmented Reality Wrong

Posted on February 16, 2019 by admin Posted in Business, Hardware, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: Vuzix is introducing smart glasses with augmented reality.

Many companies will try to release smart glasses following in the wake of Google Glass. The big problem all of them will face is that they solve no particular problem. Because they don’t solve a pressing problem, there won’t be a rush of customers clamoring to buy one.

Just look at the virtual reality (VR) craze that went nowhere, or the 3D TV fad before that. Technology that exists solely for its own sake will always be doomed to failure. Technology exists only to solve problems.

The Palm Pilot solved the problem of keeping track of details like contacts and notes, so it was far more convenient to use than lugging paper and pencil around.

The Palm Pilot morphed into a smartphone that offered the same features except with the added ability to make a phone call. The Palm Treo smartphone proved popular for a time, right up until Apple introduced the iPhone, which solved the problem of displaying a screen and controls by replacing both with a touch screen interface.

When you look at numerous companies introducing smart glasses, ask yourself what problem does it solve that can’t be solved by today’s technology? That silence you hear for an answer is what companies like Vuzix are failing to answer because they’re too busy rushing to develop new technology without once stopping to think what problem does it solve.

One common feature smart glasses keep trying to introduce is the ability to pair with a smartphone and receive notifications directly on the lenses. If you thought getting distracted by looking at your phone while driving could cause accidents, imagine driving while wearing smart glasses and getting email and message notifications directly on your lenses. Think that won’t cause more than one accident?

The huge problem smart glass makers are trying to solve is to morph a smartphone into smart glasses. That makes as much sense as morphing a smartphone into a wearable computer.

The Apple Watch isn’t succeeding because it mimics an iPhone on your wrist, but because it offers real-time health monitoring, which is clumsy to do with an iPhone.

Likewise, smart glasses won’t succeed because they duplicate the features of a smartphone but because they offer features that a smartphone does not offer. The real purpose of smart glasses is simply enhanced vision, replacing physical lenses with adjustable magnifying lenses through computational photography that’s already available in the iPhone camera. The only trick is getting the camera lenses small and light enough to fit within an ordinary eyeglass frame.

Vuzix’s smart glasses are simply a product in search of a solution, which means they’ll crash and go bankrupt shortly or give up their smart glasses altogether. When smart glasses offer something that today’s smartphones can’t offer, that’s when smart glasses will finally have arrived. Until then, we’ll have to wade through a parade of useless smart glasses pointlessly trying to mimic smartphones for no good reason at all.