CrashReportExtension: The Crash Report Extension framework allows you to perform analysis and produce a report when your app crashes. Your crash-handling code executes out-of-process, rather than from a signal handler or other in-process techniques. You implement your handler by writing an app extension that conforms to the CrashReporterExtension protocol. The system calls your processCrashReport(process:) method […]

Speaking of Mark Gurman, in the wake of Tim Cook’s unprecedented interview with the WSJ to warn that Apple is going to raise prices in response to the steep rise in RAM and SSD prices, he tweeted (XCancel link):

Regarding Apple price hikes, have to imagine these are fairly imminent. No other reason to flag them now. I’d also note that Apple back to school sale is very imminent, and it could make sense to tie these together as a buffer. Either way this is happening soon. Not a fall thing.

I won a steak dinner from my Dithering cohost Ben Thompson, betting that Apple would not raise the prices on RAM when they introduced the M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pros in March, largely on the basis that Apple considers the pricing part of the product’s brand. For the same reason, I also do not think they’re going to raise the prices of existing products mid-cycle. I think Cook’s warning is about the fall, starting with the iPhones 18 Pro and the folding “Ultra” in September, and he issued the warning months early just to make the bad news “old news” by the time September gets here.

But unlike with the MacBook Pros in March, I wouldn’t bet more than a beverage on my hunch here. However out of character it would be for Apple to raise prices midway through product cycles, the global RAM shortage is unprecedented. I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple pushes price increases moments after I hit “Publish” on this post. (I’m checking right now, before I hit the button, in fact.)

But Cook gave that interview on Wednesday. Now it’s Monday and Apple still hasn’t changed any pricing. If they were going to push out price increases soon, why not last Friday? Why wait at all unless they’re waiting for new hardware? I wouldn’t want to bet on this, but if I had to, I think price increases will roll out with new and refreshed hardware products and they’ll ride the storm in the meantime. I also wonder whether Apple hasn’t yet decided when to increase pricing. Maybe they’re bracing right now for the RAM shortage (and thus RAM pricing) to get even worse, soon, but hoping to hold out until September. And that’s why Cook didn’t offer any hints about when?

Mark Gurman, reporting for Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. is preparing a second-generation iPhone Air for spring 2027, aiming to boost the appeal of the slimmed-down device, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Current prototypes of the new model, code-named V62, add a second rear camera for ultrawide-angle photography, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the product hasn’t been announced. It’s now in advanced testing within Apple, they said.

When Wayne Ma and Qianer Liu of The Information broke the story on the second-gen iPhone Air getting a second camera system back in November, they didn’t say what kind of lens it would be — ultra-wide or telephoto. I speculated that it could go either way. The no-adjective iPhones 11–17 have all sported two lenses: 1× and 0.5×. Pro-tier iPhones have shipped with three lenses (1×, 0.5×, and a telephoto that has varied in length from 2× to 5×) ever since the iPhone 11 Pro introduced the “Pro” adjective in the name. But prior to the iPhone 11 model year, top-tier iPhones with two lenses (7 Plus, 8 Plus, X, XS) shipped with a telephoto 2× lens, not a 0.5× ultra wide, as the second lens.

If Gurman is correct that the additional lens on the second-gen iPhone Air is going to be an ultra-wide 0.5×, I wonder if that is motivated by which type of lens is more popular, or which one fits the Air’s thin form factor better. Could be both — that ultra-wide photography and video is more popular than telephoto, and it fits the constraints of the form factor better. (When I wrote about this in November, a bunch of readers emailed to say that their teenage kids shoot a ton of ultra-wide photos.)

I just ran the numbers on my personal photography with the iPhone 17 Pro over the last nine months. I’ve shot just a hair under 4,000 stills and 90 videos. Still photos by lens:

 0.5x:   6%
   1x:  86%
   4x:   5%
Front:   3%

Videos by lens:

 0.5x:  18%
   1x:  80%
   4x:   2%
Front:   0

By the numbers, I use the ultra-wide 0.5× lens about the same amount as the telephoto 4× for stills, but much more frequently for video — because video is captured with a sensor crop. But flipping through the stills shot with each, an awful lot of my 0.5× photos are macro close-ups of things like receipts and products on store shelves. If I could only have one of the two additional lenses, it’d be a close call, but I’d choose the telephoto 4× — which has become more useful than any previous telephoto lens this year with the sensor crop to get an optical 8× zoom.

Update: “Ultra-Wide 0.5× Lenses Have Utility Beyond ‘Photography’”.

30-disc set includes:

• 4K restorations of Kubrick’s thirteen features and three shorts, with their original soundtracks alongside the 5.1 mixes, restored and remastered
• Over twenty-five hours of interviews, documentaries, and behind-the-scenes materials
  • Kubrick’s international version of The Shining
• A new 4K restoration of Vivian Kubrick’s behind-the-scenes documentary Making “The Shining”
• Newly recorded commentary tracks featuring filmmaker Lee Unkrich (editor of the book Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining”) and author Michael Benson (Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece)

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Bharat Iyer:

Let’s be real … if The Observer actually cared at all about your privacy, they wouldn’t share your personal data with ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY ONE FUCKING PARTNERS. [...]

Imagine if, upon purchasing a copy of the Sunday newspaper in 1791, you were followed around town by 161 men, taking note of everything you do throughout the day. Makes you wonder who’s really doing the observing.

It’s bad enough to include 161 third-party trackers on a website. But it’s downright dystopic to declare your 161 third-party “partners” under the heading “We Care About Your Privacy”. That’s like beating someone in the head with a baseball bat while telling them “We care about your skull”, literally adding insult to injury.

Yours truly back in 2020, “Online Privacy Should Be Modeled on Real-World Privacy”:

Imagine if you were out shopping, went into a drug store, examined a few bottles of sunscreen, but left the store without purchasing anything. And then immediately a stranger approached you with an offer for sunscreen. Such an encounter would trigger a fight or flight reaction — the needle on your innate creepometer would shoot right into the red. (Not to mention that if real-world tracking were like online tracking, you’d get the same creepy offer to buy sunscreen even if you just bought some. Tracking-based offers are both creepy, and, at times, annoyingly stupid.)