Rolandt

If facts don’t matter, you can’t really be wrong.

The Washington Post interviews Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams on why he started predicting last year that Trump would be elected president — back when the rest of us were saying, no way. (I still say, no way.)

Here are Adam’s reasons:

1. Trump knows people are basically irrational.

“If you see voters as rational you’ll be a terrible politician,” Adams writes on his blog. “People are not wired to be rational. Our brains simply evolved to keep us alive. Brains did not evolve to give us truth. Brains merely give us movies in our minds that keeps us sane and motivated. But none of it is rational or true, except maybe sometimes by coincidence.”

2. Knowing that people are irrational, Trump aims to appeal on an emotional level.

“The evidence is that Trump completely ignores reality and rational thinking in favor of emotional appeal,” Adams writes. “Sure, much of what Trump says makes sense to his supporters, but I assure you that is coincidence. Trump says whatever gets him the result he wants. He understands humans as 90-percent irrational and acts accordingly.”

Adams adds: “People vote based on emotion. Period.”

3. By running on emotion, facts don’t matter.

“While his opponents are losing sleep trying to memorize the names of foreign leaders – in case someone asks – Trump knows that is a waste of time … ,” Adams writes. “There are plenty of important facts Trump does not know. But the reason he doesn’t know those facts is – in part – because he knows facts don’t matter. They never have and they never will. So he ignores them.

“Right in front of you.”

And stating numbers that might not quite be facts nevertheless can anchor those numbers, and facts, in your mind.

4. If facts don’t matter, you can’t really be “wrong.”

Trump “doesn’t apologize or correct himself. If you are not trained in persuasion, Trump looks stupid, evil, and maybe crazy,” Adams writes. “If you understand persuasion, Trump is pitch-perfect most of the time. He ignores unnecessary rational thought and objective data and incessantly hammers on what matters (emotions).”

One of the abiding myths that exist among the Japanese is that we are a single race nation. The school system teaches among other things, that no one, but absolutely no one, lives here except us Japanese-speaking, NHK-loving folk, firmly entrenched in samurai values and our ethical values personified in our being workaholics. Those who aren’t a member of this clan? Well they just happen to be here by accident, and should be tolerated without being truly welcomed. Facts like the systematic pillage/plunder of the Ainu race in Hokkaido, the enslavement of Koreans brought here during the late 16th century, the Chinese laborers who came via Okinawa during the country’s modernization process in the early 20th century – such things are swept under the futon and politely ignored.

The myth swells up like an unwieldy monster when it comes to marriage. Among many respectful families in the Kansai area, prospective brides are literally put under a hot lamp and examined minutely. Family lineage is a huge issue and woe to any young woman if there’s a record of a non-Japanese tarnishing her family tree. Never mind that Kobe has a sizable Indian population (the biggest in Japan) and in Osaka, 1.28 people out of every 100 are “zainichi,” or Japanese Korean (Source: todo-ran.com). Kansai families are renowned for their conservatism and adamant about protecting their blood. And on the rest of the archipelago, many Japanese women will date “gaijin” or foreign men, but only a fraction of those couples ever make it to the altar.

On the other hand, once you go out of the major cities and into the countryside, you’ll see that Japanese men have been willing to marry outside the Japanese bracket, for the past 30 years. As elsewhere in the world, young Japanese women refuse to marry into farms that translate immediately to a life of endless toil. Consequently, men in rural areas consider themselves lucky to marry women from the Phillippines, China and South America, claiming that foreign women are much more hardworking helpmates than their cold and calculating Japanese counterparts. As for the language barrier, it could be just be the glue to bind a lasting union. As Tokuo Miyake, a dairy farmer in Matsumoto City says of his Phillippinna wife: “I like it that we don’t speak each other’s language very much. We live with my mother, and my wife doesn’t understand it when my mom lashes out at her. Because we understand only the bare essentials about each other, there’s less to be annoyed or irritated about.”

Opening March 19 is a French movie about this very subject called “Serial Bad Weddings” – a hilarious and sometimes poignant observation of the merge between traditional values and foreign culture. The French sleeper hit of 2014, (one out of every five people in France saw it) it has finally reached our shores, just in time for the Abe Administration to contemplate opening the nation’s doors to refugees another couple of centimeters this year. (Editor’s note: That might allow a small child to slip in) 

Director/Co-writer Phillippe de Chauveron himself has been involved in an intense relationship with a Ghanian woman for the past decade and is now ready to tie the knot. “Speaking as a Frenchman, I think that my country can best be described as schizophrenic,” he said. “On the one hand, there are the ultra-rightists who want to crack down on foreigners and refugees, and then there are the liberals who are all for opening the gates. There is evidence of rampant racism but we try to take a stand on systematic discrimination and to help refugees start their lives anew. It’s very chaotic, but we’re always evolving.”

Intriguingly, France has the highest rate of mixed marriages in the EU – close to 20% of married couples are of differing nationalities. For the rest of Europe that number on average, is a paltry 3%. In Japan, mixed marriages have soared since 1965: one out of every 30 or so couples who got married between 2006 and 2013 fit that bill. 50 years ago, it was one out of every 230. (Source: nippon.com). De Chauveron says that the French are probably “more willing to experiment and try out things. Also, we are more likely to tire of relationships that go too smoothly. We thrive on arguments and passionate discussions and we love poking fun at each other’s racial foibles.” De Chauveron added that every mixed union is,  “fraught with disaster and laced with laughter. It’s a matter of finding the right balance.”

The story unfolds around the 4 daughters of the Verneuil Family, one of the most respected old names in the Loire Region. The dad (Christian Clavier) and mom (Chantal Lauby) are a little dismayed when their daughters (whom they brought up to be good French Catholics) all marry foreign men: an Arab, a Jew and a Chinese man. They pin their last hopes on their youngest daughter, but she commits the ultimate faux pas by getting engaged to an African. Chaos ensues. “The French are still struggling with the ills of our colonial legacy,” said De Chauveron. In his view though, “at least we are struggling, and very much aware of these issues.” That’s much more than we can say for how things are in Japan.

A niche manga about the life of a Japanese man and his French wife living in Tokyo

But there’s one Japanese chipping away at the mixed marriage ice, so to speak. That would be Manga artist Jean Paul Nishi (despite his pseudonym he’s a total Nippon male). He is the author of a manga series about living as a Japanese in Paris, finding the love of his life and then bringing her back to Tokyo where they are now raising a son. “I liked the movie a lot,” said Nishi who was at the press screening. “I especially identified with the dad. In real life, I’m one of the husbands you know, one of the guys who marry a French girl and tick off the family and all that. But I could really tell what was going on in the mind of the father, probably because I’m Japanese and conservatism is in my blood.” Nishi said that having lived in both countries, he’s become hyper aware of the cultural differences between Japan and Europe. “The Japanese think that being an an enlightened adult and a global citizen and all that, is to ignore the bad stuff, sweep all that aside and pretend like they can’t see the elephant in the room. The Europeans and particularly the French, are the opposite. They want to have it out and engage in deep discussions or fling insults at each other and then finally reach an understanding with each other. The Japanese think it’s a virtue not to say what’s on their minds but in Europe, not speaking up and or being dishonest about your feelings can lead to irreparable results. I think the Japanese have a 50-year lag compared to the French, in terms of interacting with others not from these shores.”

On an optimistic note, we could probably shave off at least 5 years from that lag, when we start admitting to certain historical facts about the country and our own bad legacies.

Reply to this post

A housekeeping event that refreshed the older end of its offering.

• Apple released new products and software that inched the evolution if the ecosystem forward, but there was nothing that will kill the impact of the end of the massive iPhone 6 upgrade cycle.

iPhone SE

• This is best described as an iPhone 6 in the body of the iPhone 5s at a cheaper price.
• The device will be available for $399 for the 16GB version and $499 for the 64GB version.
• Apple sold 30m of its older 4” devices over the last 12 months and there are a significant number of users still using these products.
• Furthermore, around a third of these sales (two thirds in China) were to first time iPhone users and it is to this segment that Apple is targeting this product.
• The iPhone SE is essentially Apple’s second attempt at cracking the mid-range but I think that the price has not come down nearly enough (iPhone 5c was $450 at launch) to make a real impact on the mid-range of the market.
• Consequently, this is a good upgrade for the old iPhone segment but it is unlikely to trigger a market share gain or a sudden increase in size of its ecosystem.

iPad Pro 9.7”

• This is an exact replica of its big brother except that it has a 9.7” screen and consequently comes at a slightly lower price.
• This device now starts at $599 for the 32GB and goes up to $899 for a 256GB version.
• Apple is targeting the 600m PCs that are in use today that are over 5 years old and in that regard the new screen size is a good idea.
• This is because the critical application for a PC is the productivity suite Microsoft Office.
• iOS and Android have touch optimised versions of the Office programs which are good for reviewing documents and basic editing but quickly reach their limits when in depth content creation is required.
• With a screen size below 10”, these apps will be free to download and use (within certain limits) which will be a big draw to anyone considering the switch.
• However I think that Apple will still struggle to attract this segment for two reasons.
  • First. Almost all content creation outside of design is much easier and much more productive with the use of a mouse which iOS still does not support.
  • There is no reason why this could not be added to iOS and it is something that I will be looking for at WWDC in June as a sign that Apple is taking productivity seriously.
  • Second. The iPad Pro is still too expensive at $749 for the 128GB version.
  • The equivalent Surface 3 product from Microsoft with a 10.8” screen, mouse support and capable of running the full version of Office (and every other legacy application written for Windows) is $448 some 40% cheaper.
  • This means that as a laptop or desktop replacement, the iPad Pro is going to fall short as no user that really cares about Office is likely to choose it over the Surface.
  • I continue to believe that the vast majority of the use case for the iPad Pro will remain content consumption as every device I have seen in the wild has been used exclusively for this purpose.
  • This is where this product really excels with its best in class user experience and third party app ecosystem.
• Hence, I do not see the owners of the 600m old PCs flipping to this device but I do see older iPad users upgrading to this new product in time.

Watch, TV and iOS9.

• Incremental upgrades were announced to these products with new watch bands, a lower price (indicative of lower than forecast volumes) as well as improved functionality for the TV and a new version of iOS 9.

Take Home Message

• This was a housekeeping event for Apple where it updated parts of its offering that were a little tired as well as picking up a few loose ends.
• It was not an event that will have everyone scurrying off to their spreadsheets to increase their estimates.
• Consequently, the main issue that besets Apple remains its lack of growth.
• There is very little that Apple can do about this as it is now paying the price for the huge growth that it experienced from the iPhone 6 product cycle.
• This is why the shares are valued at such a low level despite being a cash generation powerhouse that is second to none.
• This makes the shares offer extremely good value for anyone that is not concerned with growth as the cash returns are excellent.
• However, those that are looking for capital appreciation in the short term are likely to get more joy from Samsung, Microsoft or Google.

What do you want people to do differently?

Be really specific.

Participate more? Sure. But what specifically?

What kind of discussions and content do you want them to create? What kind of ideas do you want them to share? What do you want people to say about you to others?

When you get specific, you create a mental object.

Your members won’t have strong views about joining the conversation, but they will have views about the latest technology gossip.

That might not be a favourable attitude, but it’s still a measurable attitude. It gives you a benchmark to work from.

You can place the object (latest technology gossip) within their existing values, you can change their attitudes towards the latest technology gossip from a waste of time to a valuable source of tips. You can create emotional stories about the object, create a simple step to sharing an opinion on the gossip, share new information about the gossip.

You can build social norms around sharing the latest technology gossip. You can work to create a habit of discussing the news with relevance to their working day.

But to do any of these you need to isolate the behavior you want to change. That behavior has to be specific. That specificity creates the object. Until you have an object to work with, it’s hard to know where to even begin.

Figure out which is best with a side-by-side comparison. Read More

When I was young, I was certain I would be a mathematician. I still think like one. You should, too — and you don’t have to learn math to do it. A little background: I was an outstanding math student in high school and college, won an NSF Fellowship, and entered the math Ph.D. program at … Continue reading The 6 benefits of thinking like a mathematician →

The post The 6 benefits of thinking like a mathematician appeared first on without bullshit.

Andy Grove died yesterday. He is widely considered the greatest CEO in tech history.

The Andy Grove Impact

Grove’s remarkable backstory certainly plays a role in his reputation: a survivor of the Holocaust and the Soviet occupation of Hungary, Grove née Gróf arrived in the United States a penniless refugee and taught himself English while studying chemistry at the City College of New York; he later received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of California-Berkeley and then moved across the Bay to join Fairchild Semiconductor. When Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore (originally part of the Traitorous Eight who left transistor-inventor William Shockley) resigned from Fairchild Semiconductor to found Intel, Grove was their first hire¹ and it fell to Grove to build the culture and processes that would scale to support the memory business upon which Intel would be built. And so it was that the Hungarian refugee became the poster child for Silicon Valley’s idealized view of itself: a place where anyone can make it thanks to nothing more than their talent and determination.

Beyond Grove’s personal background, the importance of Intel to the technology industry — and, by extension, to the world — cannot be overstated. While Moore is immortalized for having created “Moore’s Law”, the truth is that the word “Law” is a misnomer: the fact that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years is the result of a choice made first and foremost by Intel to spend the amount of time and money necessary to make Moore’s Law a reality. This choice, by extension, made everything else in technology possible: the PC, the Internet, the mobile phone. And, the person most responsible for making this choice was Grove (and, I’d add, his presence in management was the biggest differentiator between Intel and its predecessors, both of which included Noyce and Moore).

That wasn’t Intel and Grove’s only contribution to Silicon Valley, either: Grove created a culture predicated on a lack of hierarchy, vigorous debate, and buy-in to the cause (compensated with stock). In other words, Intel not only made future tech companies possible, it also provided the template for how they should be run, and how knowledge workers broadly should be managed. Grove also helped establish the idea of “paying it forward”: the CEO was famous for his willingness to mentor young founders (most famously Steve Jobs), and he wrote multiple books as CEO focused on how to manage and dealing with strategic inflection points.

Grove’s Most Famous Decision

The basis of that latter book was Grove’s most famous decision and, by extension, the greatest contributor to his legendary status. Intel was founded as a memory company, and the company made its name by pioneering metal-oxide semiconductor technology in first SRAM² and then in the first commercially available DRAM.³ It was memory that drove all of Intel’s initial revenue and profits, and the best employees and best manufacturing facilities were devoted to memory in adherence to Intel’s belief that memory was their “technology driver”, the product that made everything else — including their fledgling microprocessors — possible. As Grove wrote in Only the Paranoid Survive, “Our priorities were formed by our identity; after all, memories were us.”

The problem is that by the mid-1980s Japanese competitors were producing more reliable memory at lower costs (allegedly) backed by unlimited funding from the Japanese government, and Intel was struggling to compete. Grove wrote:

We tried a lot of things. We tried to focus on a niche of the memory market segment, we tried to invent special-purpose memories called value-added designs, we introduced more advanced technologies and built memories with them. What we were desperately trying to do was to earn a premium for our product in the marketplace as we couldn’t match the Japanese downward pricing spiral…as memories became a uniform worldwide commodity.

Grove soon persuaded Moore, who was still CEO⁴ to get out of the memory business, and then proceeded on the even more difficult task of getting the rest of Intel on board; it would take nearly three years for the company to fully commit to the microprocessor, even though said microprocessor was already a smashing success thanks to IBM’s decision to use it in their first PC.

Over the next two decades Intel would not only reap the benefits of IBM’s decision but also greatly increase their profits through more shrewd moves by Grove. As part of selecting Intel in the first place IBM insisted that Intel share their design with another chip manufacturer called Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) to ensure multiple suppliers, but once IBM’s position was weakened through the rise of IBM-compatible manufacturers like Compaq, Intel reneged and eventually renegotiated the deal, allowing the company to leverage its technical superiority⁵ into the sort of differentiation it had not been able to achieve in memory.

Equally important was the groundbreaking “Intel Inside” campaign that recognized end users were increasingly the market for computer manufacturers, and that they could be persuaded to care more about who made their computer’s processor than who made the computer itself. It was again a move that resulted in increased differentiation and, by extension, increased profits. By the time Grove stepped down as CEO in 1998 Intel was earning $6.9 billion profit on $25.0 billion in revenue, thanks to a gross margin of 60.3%.

Intel’s Big Miss

Intel today is still a very profitable company: last year the chip-maker earned $11.4 billion on $55.4 billion in revenue, with a gross margin of 62.6%. There is a sense, though, that the company’s strategic position is much less secure than its financials indicate, thanks to Intel’s having missed mobile.⁶

The critical decision came in 2005; Apple had just switched its Mac lineup to Intel x86 processors, but Steve Jobs was interested in another Intel product: the XScale ARM-based processor.⁷ The device it would be used for would be the iPhone. Then-CEO Paul Otellini told Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic what happened:

“We ended up not winning it or passing on it, depending on how you want to view it. And the world would have been a lot different if we’d done it,” Otellini told me in a two-hour conversation during his last month at Intel. “The thing you have to remember is that this was before the iPhone was introduced and no one knew what the iPhone would do…At the end of the day, there was a chip that they were interested in that they wanted to pay a certain price for and not a nickel more and that price was below our forecasted cost. I couldn’t see it. It wasn’t one of these things you can make up on volume. And in hindsight, the forecasted cost was wrong and the volume was 100x what anyone thought.”

It was the opposite of Grove’s memory-to-microprocessor decision: Otellini prioritized Intel’s current business (x86 processors) instead of moving to what was next (Intel would go on to sell XScale to Marvell in 2006), much to the company’s long-term detriment.

And yet, for all of the deserved praise that Grove has received over the years, and as difficult as his memory-to-microprocessor decision may have been, Otellini’s decision was in my estimation far more difficult. Grove had to change Intel’s culture and perception of itself, and that is incredibly difficult, but at the end of the day he was making the choice that made financial sense: microprocessors were already more profitable and offered far greater potential for sustainable differentiation. Otellini, on the other hand, was choosing between maintaining Intel’s margins and pursuing unknown volume, and while it’s easy to sit here in 2016 and say he got it wrong, it’s only right to wonder who in 2005 would have gotten it right.

The Intel-Apple Parallel

Coincidentally Grove passed away the same day that Apple held one of its oddest events in some time: the company introduced two new devices, both derivatives of products that are already on the market. The new 9.7″ iPad Pro is better than its larger sibling when it comes to the camera and display, but from the perspective of most consumers it’s the same device in a form factor that has been around for a while; the iPhone SE, meanwhile, is a clone of the two-and-a-half year-old 5S with mostly-iPhone 6S innards.

There are definite parallels between Apple and Intel, particularly when it comes to Grove’s fateful decision: Apple’s biggest business shifted from computers to iPods, and shifted again from iPods to iPhones; the company even changed its name from Apple Computer to simply Apple. Both shifts are impressive in their own right: focusing on the iPod was to in some sense abandon Apple’s founding identity, while making the iPhone meant the cannibalization of Apple’s most profitable product ever.

Still, just as Grove’s decision to abandon memory and focus on microprocessors was in some senses “easy” given the fact microprocessors was a growing business that offered more margin, not less, Apple’s shift to the iPhone has been an “easy” one as well: the iPhone is nearly as profitable on a gross margin basis as Intel’s processors are. Make no mistake, overruling internal culture and hierarchies is hard, but giving away margin tends to be a lot harder.

The Celeron and the iPhone SE

That’s why the Grove decision that actually impresses me the most is Intel’s launch of the Celeron processor in 1998.⁸ Grove had been introduced to a then-relatively-unknown Harvard Business School professor named Clayton Christensen, who told him about research for an upcoming book (The Innovator’s Dilemma) that explained how companies in their pursuit of margin allowed themselves to be beat on the low-end. Grove took the lesson to heart and directed Intel to create a low-end processor (Celeron) that certainly cannibalized Intel’s top-of-the-line processor to an extent but also dominated the low-end, quickly gaining 35% market share.

To date Apple has declined to make a similar move; the iPhone 5C was thought, particularly before launch, to be the fabled “low-price iPhone,” but it turns out it was simply a substitute for an iPhone 5 that had significant manufacturing problems. It certainly wasn’t low-price: it started at $549, exactly where the year-old iPhone 5 would have been, and like every iPhone before it stepped down to $449 the following year before being discontinued.

To me the pricing made perfect sense, and unlike Christensen, I wasn’t worried about the iPhone being disrupted by the low-end. Indeed, I’m still not worried: the iPhone’s hold on the top-end of the market is as strong as ever.

The problem is growth: specifically, how many high-end customers are there, and how many of those customers find their current iPhones to be good-enough? And, if Apple believed their market to be increasingly saturated, would the company be willing to cannibalize its high-margin iPhone?

The iPhone SE suggests the answer is yes, and that fact alone made yesterday’s event far more important than it seems.⁹ Specifically, Apple is offering top-of-the-line specs for an unprecedented price of $399. In other words, the SE is no 5C. In fact, it seems likely Apple learned some inadvertent lessons from the 5C: I am not at all surprised that the SE looks identical to a 5S;¹⁰ when an integral part of the iPhone value proposition is status what customer wants to advertise that they bought a model that was never a flagship?

This price point will likely expand the market in the developed world, particularly given the replacement of subsidies with installment plans, but it’s most interesting in developing markets, especially India. It’s tempting to compare the second-largest phone market in the world to China, but in fact the latter is significantly richer and has a much larger high-end that primarily values status; the former, meanwhile, is very well-informed about things like processor and camera specifications, and is likely to be particularly appreciative of the SE’s aggressive feature set. I’m not at all surprised that the SE is going on sale in India only a week after the U.S., which is noteworthy considering the 6S launched in India in very limited quantities a full four weeks after the U.S.¹¹

The implications for Apple, though, are more profound than any one phone or any one market: the real long-term danger of occupying the high-end is falling in love with margin or average selling price at the expense of what makes sense strategically. Grove is to be admired for avoiding that trap, and it is encouraging that Apple CEO Tim Cook seems to be doing the same. And, fortunately for the Apple CEO, he, like Grove, can likely leave the truly devastating but ultimately understandable mistake for a successor.

1. Due to an administrative error Grove was given employee number 4 instead of 3 which reportedly rankled Grove for years, not unlike Steve Jobs’ irritation at being employee number 2 behind Steve Wozniak
2. Static Random Access Memory, which is faster and more reliable than DRAM but more expensive, and is today used for on-processor cache
3. Dynamic Random Access Memory, which is simple and cheap relative to SRAM and is still used as the main memory for computers
4. It speaks of Grove’s influence on Intel that he is widely credited for this decision even though he was not yet CEO
5. Which AMD briefly interrupted by being the first to introduce a 64-bit extension to the x86 instruction set
6. This isn’t entirely fair: Intel supplies the overwhelming majority of server processors which power the cloud; the cloud is an integral part of mobile
7. Which was derived from one of Grove’s last deals as CEO (the acquisition via settlement of StrongARM from DEC)
8. The Celeron launched a month before Grove stepped down as CEO, although obviously the decision was made well before then
9. To be clear, I’m not saying the SE is a Celeron; the smartphone market is different. I’m just noting Apple is undercutting itself to a degree
10. Except for the matte-chamfered edges
11. The India pricing is interesting: in a rather bizarre screwup Apple first announced that the SE would cost Rs 30,000, only to issue a new press release correcting the cost to Rs 39,000. This seems unusually high given the fact the 6S is widely available at only Rs 49,500.

    In fact, though, the 6S official price is Rs 62,500, which is 1.44x as expensive as the U.S. retail price; Rs 39,000 is 1.46x the U.S. retail price for the SE, so that makes sense.

    What I suspect happened is that, given India’s unique retail market that is dominated by small shops, Apple has built in a cushion to the official retail price that it expects to disappear in the market. As I noted, the 6S is widely available for Rs 49,500, which translates to $742 US; this is 1.14x the U.S. price (which pays for import duties, sales taxes, etc.). It turns out that 1.14x the U.S. price for the SE is Rs 30,419, almost exactly what Apple first put in its press release.

    In other words, I think Apple is saying that the SE will cost Rs 39,000, but they expect to sell it for Rs 30,000; they just accidentally put the latter number in the press release

Thoughts on who’s to blame for Vancouver’s high and rising house prices.

Douglas Todd in Postmedia’s Vancouver Sun discusses a recent study by Professor David Ley of UBC, published in the International Journal of Housing Policy.

The journal is paywalled, and I don’t have $41 to spare to get the PDF.  But here’s the abstract.

OS X 10.11.4, released today by Apple, fixes a number of bugs, including the inability of Safari to open Twitter short URLs. There are, however, several nice user-facing touches in 10.11.4 as well.

Live Photos

OS X now supports Live Photos taken with the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. Live Photos are viewable in the Messages and Photos apps on your Mac.

In Messages, a Live Photo is identifiable by a white version of the icon you see on your iPhone when taking a Live Photo.

The Live Photo icon.

Double-click a Live Photo in Messenger or press the space bar to open up a Quick View preview of the photo. In Quick View, Live Photos are identifiable by a special 'Live Photo' icon in the lower left corner of the image. As soon as the Quick View preview of a Live Photo opens, it plays.

Live Photos play automatically when previewed.

From the the Quick View window, you can open Live Photos in the Photos app. If you hover your mouse pointer over an imported Live Photo, the thumbnail of the image plays, indicating that it's a Live Photo. When you open a Live Photo to its full size, and hover the mouse pointer over the Live Photo icon in the lower left corner of the image, it also plays. In my tests, Live Photos I added to the Photos app worked well, but when I imported a Live Photo that was already in my iCloud Photo Library, it imported as a video instead of a Live Photo, which struck me as an odd behavior. Once in the Photos app, Live Photos can be shared via Messages using the system share extension.

Importing a Live Photo of Achille into Photos.

Notes

Notes has gained the same password protection feature as Notes on the iPhone, which allows you to lock notes on a note-by-note basis. A locked note is identifiable by a little lock icon in the notes list sidebar and next to the timestamp at the top of a note. When a note is locked, there is a password-entry field where your note text would normally be displayed. Unlock the note by entering your password and the text of your note becomes visible. You cannot set different passwords for each note – one password locks and unlocks all password-protected notes. Clicking on the lock icon in the toolbar again gives you the option to close all locked notes or remove the lock from the currently selected note.

Keep in mind that the first line of every note is its title, which can be viewed in the list of notes in the left sidebar regardless of whether the note is password-protected. As a result, you should not include sensitive information in the first line of a note.

You can now password-protect your notes.

Adding a password.

Notes also sports a new 'Import Notes...' menu item makes it easy to import notes from other apps including Evernote, and apps that export TXT or RTF files. In my tests, some formatting was off when importing web pages saved in Evernote, but given my experience with exporting Evernote notes in the past, I expect that the formatting issues are most likely a function of the Evernote exporter and not Notes' import functionality. In addition, Notes now supports sorting alphabetically, by creation date, or date modified.

Unfortunately, there is still no way to increase the default font size of notes across the app. As before, you can only do so by adjusting the size on a note-by-note basis by selecting Font from the Format menu.

iBooks

As detailed in our rundown of new iOS 9.3 features, your entire library of books, including PDFs and ePUB books that you imported from outside the iBooks Store now syncs among iOS and Mac versions of iBooks.

PDFs and ePUB books sync between iBooks for iOS and Mac.

You can also follow all of the MacStories coverage of today's Apple's keynote through our March 21 Keynote hub, or subscribe to the dedicated March 21 Keynote RSS feed.

With an announcement in January, Apple unveiled iOS 9.3, a surprisingly feature-rich update to iOS 9 with major changes for education and several tweaks to the user experience of system apps. After the generally positive response to iOS 9 and the 9.1 and 9.2 updates, few were expecting Apple to bring more features to iOS 9 ahead of WWDC and the (likely) unveiling of iOS 10.

For the past two months, I've been using iOS 9.3 on my two primary devices (an iPad Pro and iPhone 6s Plus) starting with the first beta, and I've been keeping track of all the changes – big and small – that Apple is bringing with their latest iOS release. Below, you'll find a collection of everything I've discovered.

Night Shift

The marquee addition in iOS 9.3 is Night Shift, a new software feature to reduce the blue light emission of an iOS device's display and prevent eye strain at night.

Night Shift on an iPad Pro vs. iOS 9.2 on an iPad Air 2.

Night Shift follows the somewhat controversial shutdown of f.lux sideloading; while we don't know whether Night Shift was built in direct response to f.lux or if its early 2016 launch is only a coincidence, the feature is eerily similar to (but less customizable than) the popular blue light reduction tool for OS X.

First, a quick primer on blue light and what reducing its display emission means. Modern electronic devices (both laptops and mobile devices) produce a blue light wavelength. According to numerous scientific studies – excellently collected by the f.lux team on their Research page – excessive exposure to blue light during dark hours (at night) may negatively affect our circadian rhythm – the biological clock that also regulates how our bodies and brains get ready for sleep at night. Blue light, studies suggest, can lead to having trouble sleeping and getting quality sleep; bad sleep, in return, can lead to all sorts of complications such as heart disease, obesity, and stress.

The way the f.lux team fixed this problem several years ago is simple: with a menu bar app, f.lux monitors your time zone and time of the year, and, as it begins getting dark outside, the app reduces the blue light emission of a Mac's display, veering towards a yellow hue. The darker it gets in the evening, the more f.lux reduces blue light, tinting the screen yellow and, later at night, light orange.

With iOS 9.3, Apple has taken a page from f.lux and built Night Shift so that its behavior can be automatic, with some basic manual controls.

Night Shift lives in Settings > Display & Brightness > Night Shift. It can be activated in two ways: manually (with a toggle) or with a schedule. In both cases, you'll immediately notice when Night Shift is turned on: your iOS device's screen will switch to a warmer tone, keeping colors of the interface the same but with a distinct yellow layer on top of everything. As a first test, try to enable Night Shift when in bed at night (possibly with the lights off), use it for a few minutes, then switch back to normal display mode. You'll see how Night Shift is easier on the eyes thanks to its warm hue.

More interesting, however, is the ability to tell iOS to automatically activate Night Shift at certain times. This can be done in two ways. Like f.lux for Mac, Night Shift can use geolocation to understand your position on Earth, calculate sunrise and sunset times for your location, and switch the screen to warm colors from sunset to sunrise. If you have the kind of lifestyle in which you're back home in the afternoon and go to bed early in the evening, this is the option you'll want to enable. iOS will take care of understanding when sunset is approaching and Night Shift will do the rest. You'll go to bed with less strain on your eyes; when you wake up the morning, Night Shift will be already off.

Night Shift settings.

If you're like me and stay up late at night, though, the 'Sunset to Sunrise' schedule won't be the best option. My girlfriend and I usually eat dinner at 9 PM and the lights are on until 1 AM, when we go to our bedroom and switch to a darker, relaxing purple light from one of our Hue bulbs. She falls asleep shortly after, while I stay up for another couple of hours to squeeze in more work or reading. Clearly, the geolocation-based schedule wouldn't work for us (I don't want my screen to turn yellow when bright lights are all around me), but thankfully Apple has included a custom scheduling option to enable and disable Night Shift at specific times. This way, I can set my screen to turn warmer at 12:30 AM and stay like that until 10 AM.

Settings isn't the only place where you can look for Night Shift. With iOS 9.3, Apple has added a fifth toggle to Control Center¹ that overrides whatever setting is currently enabled for Night Shift. By tapping the new Sun/Moon² icon in Control Center (which has also been slightly redesigned³), you'll turn on Night Shift or disable it if it's already on.

Turning Night Shift on and off from Control Center.

An important note: because it's a visual effect, Night Shift falls under the category of tweaks that are disabled by iOS when Low Power Mode is activated. Keep this in mind if you're using your iPhone at night and its battery is running low. Also: you won't be able to take screenshots of Night Shift while it's on. Like Apple's Invert Colors option for Accessibility, Night Shift is a display image filter that can't be captured by screenshots.

When I first installed iOS 9.3 in January, I didn't think I'd be a fan of Night Shift at all. Before iOS 9.3, I had always found f.lux to be too aggressive with its warm hues, and I hadn't paid too much attention to its sleep and eyesight benefits either.

Night Shift at its warmest setting.

After Night Shift, I'm a believer. Not only does Night Shift make it more pleasant to look at my iPhone and iPad when I'm working at night, it also makes it easier to fall asleep and wake up more relaxed.

At first, I thought it was a placebo effect; after a couple of months – and after testing it every night with my girlfriend as well – I genuinely believe that decreased eye strain facilitates falling asleep, which results in better sleep and more pleasant morning routines. As a result, I've also installed f.lux on my MacBook, but I hope that Apple will eventually bring Night Shift to OS X as well.

While Night Shift doesn't necessarily prevent me from staying up at night with my iPad, it makes the activity less straining on the eyes. I've left Night Shift enabled when watching movies and TV shows, reading articles, editing text files, and even when playing videogames. Night Shift has become an integral part of my iOS experience, and I wouldn't be able to go back to traditional blue light in the dark now.

Changes in Notes

As I argued in my review, Notes was my favorite app update of iOS 9. With iOS 9.3, Apple is bringing minor, but welcome new options to Notes.

Locking a note in iOS 9.3.

The most notable addition is the ability to secure notes with a password and Touch ID. Apple must have noticed that users like to keep all kinds of sensitive information in the app, and they're giving them a simple way to secure individual notes. From the share menu, you can now select 'Lock Note' to make a note private every time you lock your device (or you can manually tap the lock icon in the Notes toolbar).

The locking process is fairly straightforward: you first have to assign a password that will be used across all your notes (and it'll be universal across platforms); then, you'll be able to use Touch ID instead of having to type that password every time (it's similar to how you can use both a passcode and Touch ID to unlock an iOS device). If you don't want to use the share sheet to lock/unlock individual notes, you can also tap a button at the bottom of the note list to act on all locked notes at once.

It's worth pointing out that, when locking a note, the first line of text won't be hidden from the note list. This means that if you create a new note, type some sensitive information on the first line, then lock the note, that first line will be treated as the title of the note – and titles are never hidden.

This can be slightly confusing, especially because it's not communicated in the app when locking a note. It's recommended that you create notes with a non-sensitive title (again, the first line of text), then add the information you want to secure in the following lines. For good measure, you can also make the first line an actual Title using the formatting controls (available in the 'Aa' button when viewing a note).

Another detail to keep in mind: password protected notes will only work for images, sketches, maps, and web attachments. You won't be able to secure a .zip file in Notes, for instance.

Locked notes are supported by the Notes extension: if a note is locked, you won't have the option to append text or attachments to it – its name will be grayed out in the extension (you can't unlock notes from the extension itself, which is somewhat of a disappointment).

Tap

In addition to protected notes, new in iOS 9.3 is the ability to switch all images in a note to a smaller thumbnail view. This can be done by long-tapping an image within a note and choosing the 'Small Images' option, which will scale all image to a small preview; it can be reversed by long-tapping again and choosing 'Large Images'. This has been handy to scroll long notes with lots of screenshots in them.

Last, sketches and sorting. You can now swipe with two fingers on a sketch to navigate across all sketches contained in a note – if you keep swiping, you can also create a new sketch. And, notes can be sorted by date edited, date created, and alphabetically in iOS 9.3. Unfortunately, this option isn't exposed in the interface but it's hidden in the Settings app. I expected to have a sorting menu somewhere in the Notes app, and it took me a while to realize I had to open Settings to find it. If you work with a lot of notes and like to change sorting often, you'll waste quite some time doing this. I hope it becomes a built-in option in the future.

Health

Apple's Health app has some intriguing tweaks in iOS 9.3. First, Apple is trying to bolster app discovery by featuring apps that integrate with HealthKit. On certain categories (such as steps, sleep analysis, or heart rate), Apple has added a slider to view recommended apps for tracking that data in the Health app.

It's not clear how Apple is picking these apps (and we'll have to see what kind of an impact third-party developers will observe for featured apps), but it's nice to see Apple expanding their Health app as a full-featured dashboard for your health stats.

Apple Watch users will also be glad to know Apple brought Activity and Workout cards to Health. Both cards are available under the Fitness category, and Activity carries the iconic three-ring visualization when viewed in Day mode (it has vertical bars in other views).

There's no other meaningful addition in Health for iOS 9.3 – no different types of charts or reports – and I hope iOS 10 will bring a refresh in this area.

Music

While iOS 9.3 doesn't fix any of the current major issues of Apple Music (such as iCloud Music Library bugs, languishing Connect, or lack of Split View on the iPad), it brings some minor improvements worth mentioning.

In iOS 9.3, apps can add Apple Music tracks to a user's library and play them. Developers can use new methods for the Media Player and StoreKit frameworks to check the IDs of Apple Music/iTunes Store items and, if possible, add them to the library and play them. Apps that have requested access to add content to the library will appear under a new Music page in Settings > Privacy.

I tested this feature with a beta version of an upcoming app that features Apple Music integration, and I was able to add songs from Apple Music to one of my playlists without opening the Music app itself. It works as advertised, and I suspect it'll be implemented by music utilities like Shazam or Musixmatch.

Contrary to what has been reported by several outlets in the past few weeks, however, these new methods won't let apps add arbitrary audio files to the Music library on iOS; they are limited to Apple Music and iTunes Store content. As I noted in my iPad story from last month, adding local audio files to the Music library remains one of the longstanding limitations of iOS, and iOS 9.3 doesn't fix that.

New popularity indicators and lyrics view in iOS 9.3.

In the Music app, new star indicators displayed next to song titles show you album tracks that are popular on Apple Music. Speaking of stars, you can now tap the album artwork for a song in your library to view and assign star ratings; in the same artwork area, you'll be able to view lyrics for iCloud Music Library tracks (you'll have to add lyrics to songs on iTunes first). Also in the Now Playing screen, tapping the song title brings you to the album the song is playing from.

There are two playlist-related changes as well. In Settings > Music, Apple added a toggle to 'Add Playlist Songs to My Music'; if you disable this option, songs you add to playlists won't be added to your music library as well. Last, when in the Playlists view of the Music app, tapping the 'All Playlists' button reveals a new option to only view Apple Music Playlists – useful to find playlists you've followed elsewhere in the app.

Everything Else

Here's a collection of every other change I was able to find in iOS 9.3.

Better external keyboard support on iPad. You can now navigate Spotlight results with the arrow keys and paging up/down on webpages in Safari has been improved.

More 3D Touch. Apple has tweaked some icons and added new quick actions for Calculator, Settings, Compass, iTunes Store, and App Store.

Furthermore, you can press firmly on icons inside the App Store to peek at app descriptions (this works on the iTunes Store, too).

3D Touch for iTunes and App Store content.

You can sync PDFs and EPUBs in iBooks with iCloud. This is a feature I've wanted to have for a long time, and it works as expected.

Syncing EPUBs in iBooks with iCloud.

Your entire iBooks library can now be accessed on any device at any time. In my experience, iCloud sync for large EPUBs takes a while, but it works, and I haven't come across any major issues when using it.

Multiple Apple Watch support. If you have multiple Watches, you can now pair them all to a single iPhone from the Watch app. There's also an 'Auto Switch' option to automatically connect to any paired Apple Watch when you put it on and raise your wrist.

Wi-Fi Assist displays data usage. At the bottom of the Cellular setting screen, Wi-Fi Assist now shows you how much data it used when wireless connectivity was poor.

Apple News changes. There are new keyboard shortcuts in the News app, which should also be faster in loading For You recommendations. There's a new swipe menu to like and dislike stories, videos can be played from the main feed, and iPhone users can now view everything in landscape.

I'll let you guess what I tapped in the first story.

Alas, News continues to be an underwhelming effort at news curation, and everything from our original review still stands. Despite some noticeable speed improvements, article recommendations in the For You sections are still lackluster when compared to Facebook and Pocket; the reading experience still isn't as customizable as any RSS reader (Apple doesn't even use their own Safari View Controller for web views) nor as polished or whimsical as Facebook Instant Articles.

Duplicate action extension in Photos. A new Duplicate extension has been added to the Photos app, which will let you duplicate photos in your library.

For Live Photos, you can choose to duplicate them as still photos if you don't wish to keep the live part. You can also duplicate videos. Useful to make edits on a separate copy of a photo or video.

Better delete from album. When removing an item from an album in Photos, the app now asks you if you want to delete the item or only remove it from the album.

iBooks streamlines Purchased tab. In the Purchased tab of the iBooks app, you can now view updates and re-download previously purchased books and audiobooks. Family purchases are also available in this section.

New JavaScript alerts. Both on iOS 9.3 and OS X 10.11.4, Safari comes with redesigned JavaScript alerts.

A new look for JavaScript alerts.

The new alerts are non-modal: they don't block navigation while they're up, so you can navigate to another page or move to another tab. And because they have a webpage UI, alerts from websites that try to spam you won't look like they come from the OS.

iOS 9.3

For this article, I couldn't test two of the other notable changes to iOS 9.3 – CarPlay improvements for Music and Maps, and major new features for education. I hope to follow up on both in the future.

iOS 9.3 is a surprising mix of smaller tweaks and important additions to the iOS experience such as Night Shift, Classroom, and multi-student support on iPad. In many ways, iOS 9.3 feels like the Director's Cut of iOS 9.0 – features the company wanted to have ready by September but couldn't ship due to time constraints and other factors.

Some of the changes in iOS 9.3 are welcome but unsurprising, while others seem to suggest bigger things to come in iOS 10. I'm excited to see what's next.

Apple today released watchOS 2.2, which includes notable enhancements in two areas. The first is a substantial update to the Maps app, which now includes a new dedicated screen with five buttons that makes it easy to navigate to your home or work, initiate a search, display your current location, or find nearby places powered by Yelp.

Previously, the Maps app would open to your current location. Search, Contacts and Transit could be accessed by Force Touching the Apple Watch's screen. The new configuration makes getting home or to work much simpler. The new 'Nearby' button accesses eight categories: Food, Drinks, Shopping, Travel, Services, Fun, Health, and Transport. Tapping a category displays subcategories, and tapping again reveals a list of locations. Tapping on a location provides basic information from Yelp, including a rating, hours of operation, phone number, buttons to get walking, driving, or public transit directions to the destination, and a mini-map that can be opened to a full-screen view.

Maps includes Yelp information for locations.

In addition to the changes to the main Maps app, Apple has updated the Maps Glance with a subset of the features available in the main app. The new Glance is laid out in a four-button configuration that give you quick access to directions to home and work, searching, and nearby locations.

The new Maps Glance.

The second change to watchOS is support for multiple Apple Watches. Although it's not likely to be a feature that very many users use, you can now pair multiple Apple Watches with one iPhone, whereas previously, you could only pair one.

You can also follow all of the MacStories coverage of today's Apple's keynote through our March 21 Keynote hub, or subscribe to the dedicated March 21 Keynote RSS feed.

Apple has today released tvOS 9.2 for the fourth-generation Apple TV which was released in late 2015. Like iOS 9.3, tvOS 9.2 is more than just a minor point release with bug fixes – it also comes with a few new features which make notable improvements to the product. The headline new features in tvOS 9.2 include support for Bluetooth keyboards, the ability to use Siri dictation to fill out text fields, folders for apps, and support for Live Photos.

For the past week I've been running a developer build of tvOS 9.2, and below I've outlined the changes, big and small, that this release brings.

How to Update Your Apple TV

If your Apple TV has not automatically prompted you to upgrade to tvOS 9.2, you can also request an update manually. Simply go to Settings > System > Software Updates > Update Software.

Bluetooth Keyboard Support

With tvOS 9.2 Apple has now added support for using a Bluetooth keyboard, which can be used for text entry and UI navigation (e.g. arrows, volume keys). To set up a Bluetooth keyboard go to Settings > Remotes and Devices > Bluetooth, and go through the standard Bluetooth pairing process.

Siri Improvements

Dictation Support

Siri now has dictation support, enabling you to use your voice for text entry. You'll now see the Siri microphone icon in text entry boxes which instruct you to hold the Siri button to dictate. This works for search boxes such as the one in the App Store app, as well as username and password boxes in apps like as Netflix.

Siri dictation works remarkably well, and is a huge improvement over having to type letters using the on-screen keyboard, and is far less clunky than keeping a Bluetooth keyboard permanently next to your couch.

If you are worried about the privacy implications of dictating your passwords, it should be noted that spelling dictation (used for things such as email, username, passwords, phone numbers, etc) is processed locally on the Apple TV and the voice input is never sent to Apple.¹ Dictation for words and phrases, such as in the App Store, is sent to Apple.

Search the App Store with Siri

Siri can now interact with the App Store in two different ways. You can ask Siri to search for a particular app by telling Siri to "Search for [app name]", and it will search the App Store and take you directly to the app's App Store page.

Alternatively, you can search for apps from a particular category. For example you can ask Siri to "Search for Productivity Apps" and Siri will present a panel in the lower third, filled with popular apps from that category. Siri seems to support more categories than are listed in the App Store, as I also had success in searching for 'Utility', 'Social Networking', 'Reference', 'News', 'Food & Drink' and 'Sports' categories.

More Languages

Siri on the Apple TV now supports US Spanish (in US only), and French Canadian (in Canada only). When English is set as the system language, Siri can now support the variations in UK English, Australian English, and US English when a user accesses the UK, Australian or United States storefronts.

Scrubbing Activation Changes

One particular point of frustration with the new Siri Remote is that prior to tvOS 9.2, if you accidentally swiped on the Touch surface whilst viewing a video, it would trigger the scrubbing interface.² With tvOS 9.2, you now have to click the Touch surface before you can scrub forwards or backwards. As always, you can click the Menu button when scrubbing to revert back to your current position.

Add Apps to Folders

Just like you can on iOS, the Apple TV now supports the ability to group apps into folders on the Home Screen, which you can also rename. To do this, simply tap and hold on an app until you activate the ability to move the app. It can be a little tricky, but then all you need to do is hover the app over the top of another app until a folder pops open.

New App Switcher UI

With tvOS 9.2 Apple has replaced the existing app switcher UI with one that is virtually identical to the carousel app switcher in iOS 9. In addition to the advantages of consistency, it also provides a bigger preview of the last app that you had open, but the downside is that you see less of the app prior to that.

Miscellaneous

Photo Improvements

The Apple TV now fully supports iCloud Photo Library, and has added support for viewing Live Photos. Now when you scroll through your photos, Live Photos will automatically play when you view them, just as they do on iOS. If you want to replay a Live Photo (with sound), simply click and hold the Siri remote's Touch surface.

Conference Room Display Mode

Just as you could with the second and third-generation Apple TVs, tvOS 9.2 for the fourth-generation Apple TV adds support for Conference Room Display Mode. Essentially, this feature enables you to display an instruction panel on the Apple TV when the screensaver is activated; the instructions help users connect to the correct Apple TV. To activate it, go to Settings > AirPlay > Conference Room Display.

MapKit Support

Developers can now use MapKit in Apple TV apps with tvOS 9.2. MapKit is the framework that enables developers to embed maps, annotate them, and provide directions.

You can also follow all of the MacStories coverage of today's Apple's keynote through our March 21 Keynote hub, or subscribe to the dedicated March 21 Keynote RSS feed.

Thanks to Brent Toderian for the tweeted link to this article by Kristen Gagnon in Arch Daily.

Ms. Gagnon writes, quoting managing partner Gregory Henriquez of Henriquez Partners Architects, designers of the development:

The challenges of the site and its neighbourhood were seen by Henriquez as an opportunity to create social change through architecture, believing that the project became “a lightning rod for community activism,” and a chance “to try and figure out if there was some way to try and deal with these larger social issues” in the area.

Henriquez also saw the project as a microcosm of the city as a whole, with its program as an experiment in inclusivity. This is most clearly evident in the project’s ability to have both built and sold hundreds of market-rate condos at the same address as single room occupancy replacement units (SROs), and non-market family dwellings.

“In terms of success,” Henriquez states, “the goal was to have the spatial relationships so that everyone could co-exist, but they had their own entrances and they had their own amenity spaces, and everyone felt that they were equal citizens in a new collective. So for me, spatially, the most important space is the public realm – it’s the atrium, it’s the plaza, tectonically it’s the [umbilical cord-like] ‘rebirth stair’… it becomes very important architecturally because it has a public use right away on it, so everyone is allowed to be in there.” . . . . .

. . . .  It was too successful,” Henriquez claims, almost ironically. “In the course of the four or five years since we opened, the entire three block radius [around the site] has gone through a sort of renaissance in some people’s eyes, in the sense that you have dozens of incredible restaurants, services, and retail stores opening up. In other people’s eyes the change has been too fast, and much too affluent for some of the more humble people who are struggling in the neighbourhood.”

HERE is a detailed review of the development by the Urban Land Institute.

The camera bump spoils it a bit, but the rest of the hardware is about right. Except if you’re a developer, of course.

On the other hand, they’ve finally come to their senses where it regards phone sizes. I’ve adjusted to the iPhone 6, but often wish it was smaller.

In addition to the new iPhone 5se, Apple also unveiled the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, which is a successor to iPad Air 2 and a smaller sibling to the iPad Pro that launched late last year.

The new iPad features the same A9X processor found in Apple’s 12.9-inch iPad Pro, as well as the same Smart Connector that allows the tablet to work in conjunction with the Apple Pencil and the company’s Smart Keyboard accessory. In addition, the 9.7-inch Pro model sports a 12-megapixel camera — which is an improvement over the 8-megapixel camera found in the 12.9-inch iPad Pro.

9.70-inch iPad Pro Specs

• iOS 9.3
• 9.7-inch Retina 2048×1536 resolution display, 264 pixels per inch (ppi)
• 2GB RAM
• 64-bit A9X processor w/ M9 motion co-processor
• 32GB WiFi, 128GB WiFi, 256GB WiFi and 32GB, 128GB and 256GB WiFi + Cell versions
• 4 speaker audio system (stereo)
• 12-megapixel iSight camera, F2.2 lens
• 4K video recording (3840 x 2160)
• 5-megalpixel FaceTime camera, 720p HD videos
• Touch ID
• Bluetooth 4.2
• Dual microphones for calls, video recording and audio recording
• Wi‑Fi (802.11a/​b/​g/​n/​ac) MIMO; dual channel (2.4GHz and 5GHz)
• Nano-SIM
• Three-axis gyro, Accelerometer, Ambient light sensor
• 6.1mm thick
• 0.96 pounds for WiFi version, 0.96 pounds for WiFi + cellular connectivity
• 27.5 Whr battery, 10-hour battery life (cellular is 9-hour battery life)
• Available in Silver, Gold, Space Grey and Rose Gold

The 9.7-inch iPad Pro will be available to pre-order in Canada on March 24th and then generally available across the country on March 31st. The pricing for the new 9.7-inch tablet is as follows:

Pricing: 
– $799 CAD for 32GB WiFi
– $999 CAD for 128GB WiFi
– $1,199 CAD for 256GB WiFi
– $979 CAD for 32GB WiFi + cellular connectivity
– $1,179 CAD for 128GB WiFi + cellular connectivity
– $1,379 CAD for 256GB WiFi + cellular connectivity

Colour options are Silver, Gold, Space Grey and Rose Gold.

The 9.7-inch iPad Pro.

At a media event held earlier today at its campus in Cupertino, Apple took the wraps off the highly anticipated smaller iPad Pro. With a 9.7-inch display (same size of the iPad Air 2) and carrying (mostly) the same features of its 12.9-inch counterpart, the smaller iPad Pro brings all the power of the bigger iPad Pro in a more compact package with some new additions as well.

“iPad Pro is a new generation of iPad that is indispensable and immersive, enabling people to be more productive and more creative. It’s incredibly fast, extremely portable, and completely natural to use with your fingers, Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard. And now it comes in two sizes,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.

Hardware

For the most part, the new iPad Pro is a smaller version of the device we reviewed back in November. The 9.7-inch iPad Pro comes with an extra color compared to the 12.9-inch iPad Pro (Rose Gold) and it weighs less than one pound for both the WiFi and WiFi + Cellular models (0.96 and 0.98 pound, respectively). The 9.7-inch iPad Pro weighs and measures exactly the same as the iPad Air 2 at 9.4 inches (height) by 6.6 inches (width).

The 9.7-inch iPad Pro runs on Apple's A9X chip, first introduced with the iPad Pro last year. The A9X is based on a 64-bit architecture that is 1.8 times more powerful than the iPad Air 2 and a 22x increase in CPU performance over the original iPad released in 2010. The A9X's storage controller, also first seen last year, helps deliver advanced 3D graphics and fast performance for tasks such as editing 4K video streams, or opening RAW files imported from an HD camera.

The A9X drives the iPad Pro's Retina Display, which is where Apple brought the most changes compared to the 12.9-inch iPad Pro. The display still has a resolution of 2048x1536 pixels at 264 ppi, like the iPad Air 2, but, unlike the bigger iPad Pro, the 9.7-inch model has a "wide color display" with a wider color gamut that grants the device a 25 percent greater color saturation.

According to Apple, the 9.7-inch iPad Pro uses the same color space as the digital cinema industry – it's also 40 percent less reflective than the iPad Air 2 and 25 percent brighter at 500 nits of light.

But that's not all. On the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, Apple added a new True Tone display that uses new four-channel sensors to adjust the white balance of the display to match the light around you.

The True Tone display in action.

Apple demoed this feature with an iPad app using a white background that, thanks to the True Tone display, was able to adjust the colors of the UI across the white spectrum depending on where the iPad was being used. The True Tone display is not available on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, with Apple hinting on its website that the portability of the smaller model justifies the addition:

People love using iPad everywhere. That’s why the new 9.7‑inch iPad Pro has a True Tone display. It uses advanced four-channel ambient light sensors to automatically adapt the color and intensity of the display to match the light in your environment. Which means reading is more natural and comfortable — almost like looking at a sheet of paper.

Like the bigger model, the 9.7-inch iPad Pro comes with a four-speaker audio system that offers twice the volume output of the iPad Air 2. The four-speaker system is also tightly integrated with iOS, so volume output will adjust depending on the orientation of the device.

In terms of wireless connectivity, the 9.7-inch iPad Pro supports roughly the same LTE bands of the 12.9-inch model (some minor differences can be seen on the Tech Specs page), and, more notably, it offers an embedded Apple SIM. Apple explains:

Embedded Apple SIM in iPad Pro (9.7-inch) may be disabled when purchased from some carriers. See your carrier for details. Apple SIM and embedded Apple SIM not available in China.

And:

Now with Apple SIM embedded directly in the new iPad Pro, it’s even easier to connect to wireless data plans right from your device when traveling in more than 100 countries and territories.

Camera

The biggest change from the 12.9-inch iPad Pro is the camera.

On the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, Apple included a 12 MP iSight camera that can capture 4K video, 240 fps slow-motion videos (1080p at 120 fps, unlike the 12.9-inch Pro's 720p at 120 fps), and Live Photos. It's the first iPad camera with True Tone flash for more accurate skin tones, and the front-facing camera has been upgraded too: on the smaller iPad Pro, it's a 5 MP FaceTime HD camera with support for Retina Flash with True Tone.

iPad Pro has an advanced 12-megapixel iSight camera sensor featuring Focus Pixels for fast focusing, an Apple-designed image signal processor, advanced noise reduction, third-generation local tone mapping and better face detection, all resulting in sharp, detailed images, 63-megapixel panoramas and Live Photos.

Sadly, the 9.7-inch iPad Pro also inherited the infamous camera bump from the iPhone 6/6s line, which is already generating some criticism on Twitter and tech blogs.

Well, it's a bump.

Apple Pencil and Smart Connector

The small iPad Pro, like the bigger model, supports the Apple Pencil to draw, take notes, and interact with apps.

According to Apple, there's no difference between using an Apple Pencil on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro and the new 9.7-inch model: the accessory is the same, it can be easily paired via Bluetooth by plugging it into the device once, and developers can take advantage of the same APIs they've already added for Apple Pencil integration in their apps.

Smart Keyboards for the two iPad Pro models.

The same applies to the Smart Connector, which is available on the bottom edge of the 9.7-inch iPad Pro (when in landscape) and which can be used to connect to and power accessories. One of these accessories is the Smart Keyboard, of which Apple has created a smaller version for the new iPad Pro. The Smart Keyboard for the 9.7-inch iPad Pro starts at $149 (it's still $169 for the 12.9-inch model).

Once again, you can take a look at our original review of the Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard for a deeper overview and impressions.

Accessories

Like the iPad Air and bigger iPad Pro before, the 9.7-inch iPad Pro offers a range of accessories made by Apple (and, we assume, more coming soon from third-party manufacturers).

First up, the Polyurethane iPad Pro Smart Cover and Silicone Cases for the 9.7-inch iPad Pro will be available for $49 (US) and $69 (US), respectively, in what Apple calls "a range of new vibrant colors".

The Smart Cover for the 9.7-inch iPad Pro starts at $49 and comes in 12 colors; the Silicone Case for 9.7-inch iPad Pro also comes in 12 colors and starts at $69.

Today Apple has also dropped some interesting updates for cables and adapters in the iPad Pro family. A Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter, available for $39, will allow to import photos and videos from digital cameras, as well as connect to additional USB peripherals with a USB Power Adapter. However, while the 12.9-inch iPad Pro will transfer at USB 3 speeds (as previously reported), the 9.7-inch iPad Pro will only transfer at USB 2 speeds.

In a similar vein, the company's new Lightning to USB-C cables ($35 for 2 meters and $25 for 1 meter) will only support fast charging with an Apple 29W USB-C Power Adapter on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, not the 9.7-inch one. This is likely related to the 12.9-inch iPad Pro having a 38.5-watt-hour battery, while the new 9.7-inch iPad Pro has a 27.5-watt-hour battery (the iPad Air 2 has a 27.3-watt-hour one).

Pricing and Release Date

The new iPad Pro starts at $599 for the 32 GB WiFi version; the 32 GB WiFi + Cellular model will set you back $729, and it's exclusive to the 9.7-inch model (there is no 32 GB Cellular version of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro).

Apple did add a new size configuration to both iPad Pro models today, though: a 256 GB model available for both WiFi and WiFi + Cellular versions of the iPad Pro line. The 256 GB 9.7-inch iPad Pro starts at $899 for the WiFi model and $1029 for the Cellular one.

With today's updates and price drops across the line, the iPad product matrix is priced as follows:

The 9.7-inch iPad Pro will be available to order beginning Thursday, March 24, and it'll launch on Thursday, March 31, in 13 countries – Australia, Canada, China (Wi-Fi models only), France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Singapore, the UK, US Virgin Islands and the US. It'll then be available in an additional 47 countries in early April.

Quick Takeaway

Apple is positioning the 9.7-inch iPad Pro as a smaller version of the bigger iPad Pro that comes with some unique benefits because of its higher portability. The improved display, for instance, with True Tone capabilities directly relates to the fact that more people carry around a 9.7-inch iPad than they do with a 12.9-inch device.

That said, as someone who uses a bigger iPad Pro as his only computer every day, the changes to the display brought by the 9.7-inch model don't sound as compelling as fast charging, USB 3 transfer speeds, and the additional screen real estate of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro.

As I've written before, using iOS on a larger display – especially with Split View multitasking – feels dramatically superior than a 9.7-inch iPad, and I don't see myself going back to the smaller form factor.

However, I would like to see the same display technology and 32 GB WiFi + Cellular variant of the small iPad Pro come to the bigger model in the future. Hopefully next year.

Hands-On Videos and Everything Else

Below, we've compiled a collection of hands-on videos and miscellaneous tidbits about the new iPad Pro.

The 9.7-inch iPad Pro comes with redesigned antenna lines for the Cellular model.

Apple cleaned up the look of LTE version of iPad. Now just lines rather than big piece of plastic. pic.twitter.com/3cH7MXhgTf

— Abdel Ibrahim (@abdophoto) March 21, 2016

9.7” iPad Pro has redesigned antenna lines. pic.twitter.com/XIXrXiRUCK

— Ryan Jones (@rjonesy) March 21, 2016

The iPad Air 2 price drop is indeed a big deal if you're not in the market for a Pro version.

$100 price drop on the iPad Air 2 is bigger news than it’s getting credit for today.

— Dan Frakes (@DanFrakes) March 21, 2016

No iPad at $499 for the first time ever.

— Marco Arment (@marcoarment) March 21, 2016

The Rose Gold iPad Pro looks nice:

Can confirm the new Rose Gold iPad Pro does have its charms (cc @film_girl) #AppleKeynote pic.twitter.com/o2mgwtoske

— Chris Tognotti (@ctognotti) March 21, 2016

Today's event, as viewed through emoji:

So far today:

FBI
Old iOS devices
iPad haters
Mac users

— Casey Liss (@caseyliss) March 21, 2016

It looks like the recent iPhone SE rumours were almost completely accurate.

At its Cupertino, California-based central campus today, Apple finally revealed a product industry observers have predicted the company has been preparing to release for years: a 4.0 inch smartphone called the iPhone SE.

The handset takes the powerful processor from the iPhone 6s and crams it into a 4-inch form factor. Visually, the phone is almost indistinguishable from the iPhone 5, which has been discontinued with the launch of the SE. It features the same 1136 x 640 pixel display, as well as a nearly identical bezel and rectangular form factor, though the SE’s edges seem slightly more curved when compared to the 5s.

The most surprising thing about the iPhone SE is Apple hasn’t skimped on the smartphone when it comes to technical specifications like it did with the budget-focused 5c; it’s clear the SE is a premium smartphone, designed to perform the same as the 6s. It’s worth noting, however, that the smartphone does not feature the pressure sensitive 3D Touch-enabled display included in Apple’s other, larger smartphones.

Continuing with the 6s to SE comparison, Apple’s new phone features the same 12 megapixel 4K-capable shooter you’d find on the 6S, however, the camera bump many smartphone users often complain about is completely absent.

While I was not able to test the camera for an extended period of time, the SE’s camera app launches at roughly the same speed as the iPhone 6s, and seems to snap excellent photographs.

The same can be said about the phone’s overall performance thanks to the speedy A9 processor, the same silicon featured in the iPhone 6s. While my time with the smartphone was short, high-end, graphically intensive games, performed smoothly, both in terms of load times and actual gameplay. The M9 chip has also made its way to the SE, allowing users to say “Hey Siri” to activate Apple’s personal assistant, a feature that doesn’t appeal to me, but has proven popular with some users.

Continuing with the SE’s aesthetics, if you’ve held the iPhone 5 or 5s, you’ll be familiar with the design of Apple’s latest device. However, I do feel like specific aspects of the SE’s overall aesthetic haven’t aged well, especially when compared to the sleek looking iPhone 6 or 6s, particularly when it comes to the phone’s glass back and angular design.

During my brief hands-on time with the smartphone, my initial reaction was the SE feels incredibly small, so much so that my fingers felt cramped when typing with it. I’m on the “phablet” bandwagon and prefer larger devices, but there definitely is an audience out there that feels alienated by Apple’s last two larger smartphones. For some, a 4-inch devices is perfect and until now, iOS users looking for a modern device, with the latest technical specs, have had no alternatives.

One other benefit worth noting is I instantly felt comfortable using the smartphone in just one hand, which is something I wasn’t able to say about the 6 or 6s.

In the end, it’s clear that the SE is designed specifically for a very specific Apple user – one that misses the 4-inch form factor of older Apple smartphones. It’s unlikely, however, that the phone will convince Android users fond of smaller form factors to jump to Apple’s operating system given its relatively hefty price tag.

We’ll have a full review of the iPhone SE in the coming weeks. This story will also be updated with video hands-on impressions shortly. The iPhone SE is up for pre-order in Canada starting March 25th and available for sale on March 31st. The pricing is as follows: 16GB: $579 (CAD) unlocked and 64GB: $709 (CAD) unlocked. The iPhone SE comes in four colours that match iPhone 6s’ variants: Silver, Gold, Space Grey, and new for the SE, Rose Gold.

Related reading: iPhone SE specs, Canadian pricing and availability, 9.7-inch iPad Pro Hands-on: Same tablet, smaller build

Shalom, PT readers!

My name is Tanya Paz. Please allow me to introduce myself.

I’m third generation Vancouverite on one side and first generation Canadian on the other. The Vancouverites on Mom’s side hailed from Scotland mainly and Dad’s parents were from Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. Dad was born in Jerusalem. My parental units met in Vancouver at Oak & 41st, naturally.

I grew up in rural Aldergrove in a house on 6.2 acres – an area now part of Abbotsford – and walked along Fraser Highway to school and back, sometimes carrying my alto saxophone 2.4 kilometres one way, amongst speeding dump trucks and semi-trailer trucks.

I was a Rotary exchange student in Funabashi, Japan for a year and I studied at Université Canadienne en France near Nice for a year. I moved to Vancouver to go to UBC in 1991, and have lived here since in various neighbourhoods. I’ve now lived in the same 496 square feet downtown for 21 years between the West End and Yaletown in an area known as Downtown. Just when I think it isn’t possible to love Vancouver any more than I do, I love it just a little bit more.

I have worked for women’s rights, affordable housing, and sustainable transportation. Most notable is my work locally, nationally, and internationally in carsharing. More information on my career can be found on LinkedIn.

I spend a lot of time volunteering for the City of Vancouver chairing the civic agency Active Transportation Policy Council which advises City Council on walking, bicycling, skateboarding and other modes, and transit.

I’m an urbanist geek who loves data, discussions, process, policy, articles, presentations, helping people change their behaviour, logistics, operations, civic engagement, non-violent strategizing, seamlessly integrated multi-modal transportation, matchy-matchy outfits, tea, and ice cream.

Disclosure: I am currently advising two start-ups: VeloMetro on their Veemo and Hedgehog Recycle. I copy edit Momentum Magazine.

Disclaimer: I fell off my bicycle in a protected bike lane on Hornby Street in September, didn’t hit my head, and have had a concussion since. It’s getting better and I’m expected to make a full recovery but trains, buses, cars, mean comments, loud noise, and bright light make it worse. I miss my bike.

Of course I’m on Twitter.

For kicks I paint bicycles, oil on canvas.

I am very honoured to be the second woman featured in Vanity Buzz’s Women in Urbanism series by my friend, Melissa Bruntlett. The profile piece provides a great overview of my career path and also gives me the opportunity to announce my new job as a communications specialist at Modus Planning, Design and Engagement:

Had you spoken to Jillian Glover back in 2004 – at the point when she was just beginning her professional career – she would have never guessed where her journey would take her, now twelve years down the line.

After graduating from Simon Fraser University with a Bachelor’s in Communications, Glover quickly became a Communications Advisor for Western Economic Diversification Canada. During her four years there, she focused heavily on urban issues – specifically concerning The Vancouver Agreement, an initiative bringing together all three levels of government to work of the revitalization and redevelopment of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

“I began to see that government and policy can play a role in improving our cities,” reflects Glover. She watched as the municipal, provincial, and federal governments addressed issues around health, safety, and housing in one of Vancouver’s most vulnerable neighbourhoods, and understood the importance of making the long-term investments needed to enrich the lives of all the people in the city.

You can read the full article here.

Many of us will be watching the Federal budget announcement tomorrow.  This op-ed in the Globe & Mail by Toronto Mayor John Tory reiterates what he has hopefully advised the Feds long ago about where to allocate some big chunks of change. It certainly echoes my thoughts.

I do wonder if the op-ed’s timing is a preemptive strike against critics who are against Federal spending for rapid transit — or in fact any such spending at all.

In any case, transit is top of the list for Vancouver, with many hoping that the Feds will contribute more than their traditional third of the money.  Vancouver will also be looking for Federal contributions to social housing.

Says Mr. Tory:

Investing in big-city transit – revitalizing its existing systems and expanding its networks – is one of the smartest bets the federal government could make in the country’s economic and social well being, with almost immediate payoffs.

On Tuesday, cities are hoping to see federal funding for transit infrastructure flow to cities according to their need, meaning that places such as Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal would receive an increased share.

This would be a big deal for big cities and mean faster, more reliable service for the millions of people who use urban transit every day (many of whom come in from outside the city proper). This would increase our productivity and economic outputs while spurring private investment in urban centres.

The new Liberal government campaigned on a commitment to cities, with an infrastructure plan that promised to inject roughly $125-billion of spending over the next decade.

This stimulus plan will have an impact on more than just urban transit; it will also benefit social and affordable housing, help us to attract and retain young knowledge workers, climate-proof our cities through flood protection, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by addressing their root causes, retrofitting aging buildings and getting more people out of their cars.

Thanks to Ian for the topic.

Change is always controversial, whether it is to an old regulated industry, or to an old business model.  Take Uber, for example.

Not everyone likes Uber, just think of Canada’s taxi industry, which is being forced into change. Here at home, the BC Provincial Gov’t is pondering what the inevitable re-regulation might look like. And Vancouver City Hall has placed a moratorium on Uber until such re-regulation is in place.

According to Ian Bailey in the Globe and Mail, Uber is not universally cooperative when they enter a market. This probably does not make too many friends, and points to some aspects of their business practices:

Brishen Rogers, an associate professor of law at Temple University in Philadelphia who has written on Uber, said on Sunday that the company’s position in relation to B.C. is atypical compared to its approach in the U.S. and Europe.

“The company’s standard procedure in the U.S. and Europe has been to drive first and ask questions later,” he said in an e-mail exchange.

He said the company has faced lawsuits in the United States, strikes by U.S. drivers and push back from taxi drivers and regulators in Europe that may be forcing it into a new maturity.

Erika Shaker writes at Rabble.ca with some stinging insight. She also compares press response to Uber’s “App-italism” with response to proposals for change made by Canada Post’s union (Canadian Union of Postal Workers – CUPW).

But let’s be clear: there is nothing unconventional or remotely innovative about corporations that rationalize exploitation — of a workforce, of political connections, of rules that exist to protect a minimum standard of rights, dignity and safety — to justify their continued pursuit of profit. After all, that’s what — left unchecked — they’ve pretty much always done.

Uber’s business model, for example, involves a precarious, low-paid, unprotected workforce; a cheeky disregard (read: utter lack of respect) for jurisdictional laws or regulations; and an almost unlimited desire for self-promotion through money and personal or political connections.

But when it comes to CUPW and their vision for Canada Post:

But why is it that when a publicly owned enterprise (or its workers) starts talking about “shaking up” an older business model, rather than being lauded for their innovative thinking, they are accused of overreaching or abandoning their mandate or of delaying the inevitable march towards the future (read: privatization)?

That’s exactly what happened when, earlier this month, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), in conjunction with the Leap Manifesto, released a comprehensive proposal for a green postal service, that re-envisions post offices as community hubs that encourage economic development.

Thanks to Ian for the links.  My thoughts follow.

Jana Kasperkevic writes in the Guardian about several corporations setting up to provide and manage shared accommodation in the USA.  One company (Open Door) runs “self-managed” houses with around 10-12 housemates.  Another (Common), provides basic household services like weekly cleaning. Other companies entering this field are established property managers looking to new markets for their buildings and space.

A bit more detail from Kasperkevic on Common:

Common’s next project in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, consists of four five-story buildings connected to create a 20,000 sq ft space with 51 bedrooms. Most of the apartments will consist of four bedrooms, two bathrooms and one kitchen-living area. The members will also have access to communal space in the basement and the rooftop. The space is set to open later this spring with bedrooms starting at $1,800 a month for a 12-month commitment. Tiered pricing will be available for six-, three- and one-month stays.

I lived in “communal” houses when I was in grad school, and was young, and dinosaurs walked the earth.  The memories are not happy ones.  These are echoed in the rather astute comments that follow the Guardian’s article.  Maybe this sort of housing is not for everyone. But it was really cheap.

The photos that accompany the article put a shiny happy spin on the “co-living” concept.  When I study them for a while, they look like glossy PR pix, and unrepresentative of the likely reality. Sort of chic-utopian. Certainly, they show a narrow demographic.

Meanwhile, here in BC (Sooke to be exact), another type of co-housing community is underway. Karen Wells of CBC Radio does 31:35 on Harbourside. The concept is quite different from above:

A school bus driver, a mountain guide, a teacher, a hard living old DJ, several nurses, and an anthropologist – more than forty people – have built  their own community. They call it Harbourside.

Five years ago they didn’t know each other. Now, they are a tribe – neighbours prepared to live together and look after each other, with any luck, till the end of their days.

Their mantra – flourishing through mutual support.

The concept is called co-housing and it originated in Denmark. Now it’s big on the west coast of North America and is gaining ground across Canada, as people search for new forms of community, support and caring.

Harbourside is co-housing for seniors. It is one of the first of its kind in Canada.

To quote Harboursides’s descriptions is to see the appeal and the differences to the above model.  The big one in my mind is that one is for people with money, the other isn’t.

Cohousing is a neighbourhood design that combines the autonomy of private dwellings with the advantages of shared resources and community living – it encourages community while maintaining the option for privacy.

Not to be confused with co-op’s, cohousing uses the strata title ownership structure. To find out more about the difference between cohousing, co-op’s and conventional strata title click here.

Cohousing is based on private ownership of complete, self-contained homes centered around and focused on shared facilities (common house), which typically includes a kitchen, dining area, lounge, guest/caregiver suites, workshop, meeting spaces and other features the members may choose. Although each home has its own complete kitchen, shared dinners are typically available a few days each week at the common house for those who wish to participate.

Zosia Bieliski writes in the Globe and Mail with a wide perspective on senior co-housing.

Baby boomers have long rejected tradition. Now, some are hoping to re-invent yet another stage in life: old age. As the first wave of boomers retires, some are writing a new script for what comes next. While their parents also sought to avoid institutions, most did not think further than the family home. They “aged in place,” often suffering social isolation and reduced mobility, especially after the death of a spouse.

Their children do not want to grow old alone. They want to age well in community, not in a pod in the sky or a rural home on the peripheries. The buzzword is “interdependence:” You want your own space but you also want to know –and to some degree, depend on – your neighbours. These boomers want someone to be there for them before a nurse is needed, which may be a while given their unprecedented health and longevity.

To that end, alternative housing arrangements are popping up all over North America, with a small but determined cohort – many of them single, divorced and widowed – thinking up many of the setups themselves. Harkening back to the communes and co-ops of the boomers’ youth, about a dozen “co-housing” communities have sprouted across Canada, with dozens more in the planning stages. Most consist of small individual apartments or houses with large shared kitchens, dining rooms, terraces and gardens where neighbours willingly interact. For those who want the energy of the young, there are multi-generational communities that welcome families. For others who would rather splurge on yoga mats, elevators and respite suites than on playgrounds, certain developments are reserved for empty-nesters. They are planned, owned and managed by residents, not outsiders.

If you’re a developer, it’s unlikely you’ve ever said "I wish I could spend a whole day patching critical security holes in my infrastructure!" (If you do, we’re hiring). And if you’re running a business, it’s unlikely you’ve ever said “Yes! I would like my developers to lose a day’s worth of feature-building on security patches!”.

At Heroku, we believe you shouldn’t have to spend the time required to patch, test, and deploy security fixes. Because of that, some of Heroku’s most important features are ones you never see: we keep our platform reliable and secure for your apps so you don’t have to.

Recently Google Security and Red Hat both discovered a high severity bug in a fundamental system library—glibc. This library is in common usage across the internet. If a server with a vulnerable version of the library were to make a DNS request to a malicious resolver, the DNS server could potentially execute code on the system making the request.

What do we do when a security vulnerability lands?

Heroku took the glibc issue very seriously. We’ve done a lot of work to make sure our dyno containers are secure and we do everything possible to keep our customers safe.

Our first step in any security incident is an immediate assessment by our security team. They work with our engineering teams to determine how big of a risk any vulnerability is to us. In this case, the potential for remote code execution meant that we considered it a high priority patch for any system running glibc and querying DNS. That’s pretty much all of them.

We patched our entire runtime fleet for both our Common Runtime and Private Spaces platforms. We also patched our Cedar stack image, to ensure that all the code you’re running in your dynos stays safe. Last and most complicated, we patched our Data platform (Postgres and Redis) while keeping your data safe and available.

How do we do this with a minimum of downtime?

We have standard practices for rolling out changes such as upgrades, new features, or security patches. These practices vary depending on the platform we’re applying the changes to.

For the Common Runtime and Private Spaces this is built into our infrastructure. When we push a new software version, we build a new base image (which is what dynos live on top of) and cycle your dynos off to a fresh instance using the new image.

An automated Continuous Integration (CI) pipeline updates our base images every time we update one of our components and includes the latest Ubuntu base image. This new base image is automatically used by automated tests and new runtimes in staging. We cut a new release based on it and trigger the upgrade: first to our existing staging fleet, then to a small subset of production, then the entire production fleet. Tests run between each of these stages.

In this case, we ensured that the latest base image contained the patched version of glibc and manually triggered our normal staged update and testing process.

What about the dynos themselves? They are security-hardened Linux containers which are isolated from the base image they run on. Dynos are composed of a few pieces—your code, which we call a slug, your language-specific buildpack, and what we call stack images. Stack images provide basic system resources like glibc, and we make sure they have the latest security patches. In this case, we updated our stack image at the same time we updated our base image, as soon as we had a patched version of glibc. As dynos cycle, they pick up the new stack image.

This dyno cycle takes 24 hours by default, and if we feel the need to move more quickly, we can force a faster refresh. In this case we waited for our normal 24 hour cycle to prevent customers noticing disruption as everything restarts in quick succession. Our assessment of the vulnerability was that the risk was not so high that it would be worth potentially affecting running apps.

What about data?

Postgres, Redis, and any data store are more complicated to update. Customers store irreplaceable information that we can’t architect around like we do for our runtimes. We need to be both available and secure, patching servers while keeping your data flowing.

To solve this problem for Heroku Postgres, we have follower databases. These automatically get a copy of all the data sent to your main database. When we need to update quickly, we can create a new, updated follower first and then change the follower to the main database. This does cause a short period of downtime, which is why we allow you to set maintenance windows so you can anticipate interruptions. In this case, based on our assessment of the vulnerability, most customers received their updates in their expected maintenance window.

For Heroku Redis, we have a similar story, including maintenance windows. Again, most customers received their updates in their expected maintenance window.

What about Heroku itself?

A lot of Heroku runs on our own platform! We use all the tools we have to keep our customers secure and stable for ourselves. We did schedule some maintenance to patch our own internal databases with the above follower changeover process. This maintenance affected our API, Deployment, and orchestration system for a few minutes on each database. It didn’t affect our routers or runtimes—so your customers would have been able to reach your app even during maintenance.

Keep calm, carry on

The need to patch occasional security holes is serious and unavoidable. Before this glibc issue, there was last year’s GHOST issue, and Heartbleed before that. At Heroku, we believe these patches shouldn’t disrupt your flow. We work very hard to handle security issues and other platform maintenance with minimum impact to you or your apps—so you can carry on with your work without distraction.

When the Wireless Code of Conduct was instituted by the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in 2013, the hope was that it would give customers more leverage against Canada’s national carriers and their oligopoly.

However, as some observers initially predicted, many changes, like the move away from three- to two-year contracts, haven’t actually helped customers save money on their monthly wireless bills.

Another one of the Wireless Code’s stipulations, the part that says users must explicitly approve charges that bring their monthly bill past $50 in additional charges, may also not be helping protect consumers.

A new Marketplace report has found that some customers are still getting surprised with massive bills, and more often than not these cases don’t even involve roaming charges.

The report found that customers with Telus, Bell and Rogers have all run in to situations where shared plans were charged excessive overage fees (up to $1700 in a single month), and that the additional charges were often approved by a child, or a non-account holder. For most carriers, this approval is as simple as replying ‘yes’ to an SMS message from the carrier. And this approval is only required once per billing cycle.

All three major carriers have responded to the criticism, saying that their businesses are in compliance with the Wireless Code. Smaller carrier Eastlink Wireless has said on Twitter that on their family share plans only the account holder can approve overages. The Big Three carriers have said that customers can also block data outright to specific accounts, with a small fee involved in case of Telus.

Since this is obviously in complete dissonance with the spirit of the rules the CRTC put in place, the regulatory group says it will be reviewing the Code in the next two years to evaluate its success and modify it as needed.

If you have been affected by a seemingly unfair practice, the report advises customers who haven’t been successful in disputing overage charges with their carrier to contact the CCTS (Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services) for assistance. The group can and does regularly force carriers to reimburse customers in these circumstances.

Photo by Marvin Macaraig

New group aims to grow bike culture in Scarborough

By John Saunders

How do you build bike culture in Scarborough?

Marvin Macaraig, coordinator for the Scarborough Cycles project, says part of the answer lies in working with community partners who share the vision and have the space and resources to help cyclists connect with each other.

Thanks to Scarborough Cycles, residents will soon have access to bikes and tools, as well as training on safe riding and bike repair. They'll also be able to just hang out with other enthusiasts once the hubs are up and running this June.

Two new hubs will be housed at Birchmount Bluffs Neighbourhood Centre (on Birchmount Road betwen Danforth Avenue and Kingston Road) and AccessPoint on Danforth part of Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services (at Danforth and Victoria Park Avenues) in Scarborough will extend support for the area's growing cycling community and could help to increase and improve bike signage, bike lanes and multiuse trails in the area.

Macaraig says the two hub locations were selected through a thorough research and engagement process. In 2015, partners in the Scarborough Cycles project looked into ridership patterns, as well as current and planned cycling infrastructure and “came up with a number of hot spots” for cycling. They then found “internal champions” to help launch the project.

AccessPoint is near the Taylor Creek Trail and Birchmount Bluffs is a stone’s throw from the waterfront trail. The locations hold a lot of potential as additions to the city’s growing cycling network, not only as corridors to extend it, but as learning opportunities for improvement too. “Kingston Road is an ideal candidate to showcase how cycling infrastructure can be done in a suburban context,” says Macaraig.

Suburban cycling: definitely different from downtown

Suburban cycling offers its own special set of challenges compared with riding downtown. Riders might have to plan a bit more in advance and watch the road conditions for their route more closely, for example. Wider lanes, faster speeds, the noise is different. “You feel a little more exposed on some of the boulevards,” Macaraig says, noting it’s much easier to orient yourself when you are biking downtown; "When you're in the core, you can just look up and see the CN tower…”

Even though the majority of bike resources, shops and attention to bike infrastructure development has been in Toronto’s core area so far, Scarborough does already have a lot to offer. Macaraig points to the multiuse path along the Gatineau Hydro Corridor between Victoria Park and Kennedy Road as one example.

With some additional signage via the City’s wayfinding strategy, connections to other thoroughfares or significant locations could be clearer and would strengthen the overall network, he adds. Macaraig also points to the 12-km North Scarborough Greenloop that opened in 2014, and the 80-km network of multiuse trails launched as the Pan Am Path in 2015 as examples of growing infrastructure.

There are groups such as TO35Cycles and Ward 36 Cyclists that are helping to build a cycling community, particularly in southern Scarborough.

Macaraig says the hubs plan to help folks who don't necessarily fall within conventional definitions of commuters or bike enthusiasts, too. “There's a whole segment of the population in Scarborough that bike every day, but will never identify themselves as “cyclists”,” he says.

"Things like (these) hubs are part of an ongoing continuum of improving cycling in Scarborough.”

Partners for the Scarborough Cycles project include CultureLink Settlement and Community Services, the Toronto Cycling Think & Do Tank at the University of Toronto, and Cycle Toronto. The Metcalf Foundation Cycle City program funds the project.

dandyhorse will keep you posted on the exact opening dates and types of programming that will be offered this spring by the Birchmount Bluffs Neighbourhood Centre and AccessPoint hubs.

Related on the dandyBLOG:

Another small step forward for Bike lanes on Bloor-Danforth

From the Horse's Mouth: Cycling forecast for 2016

Flashback Friday: Bike Spotting in Scarborough

The Great Divide Part Three: Yes, Scarborough Cycles

Pan Am Path multiuse trails