Quick Takes: PGA TOUR Gets Augmented, Interview With HQ Trivia's $25,000 Winner, and More

[MacRumors]

In addition to our standalone articles covering the latest Apple news and rumors at MacRumors, this Quick Takes column provides a bite-sized recap of other headlines about Apple and its competitors on weekdays.

Monday, March 12

- PGA TOUR introduces augmented reality app: PGA TOUR AR uses Apple's ARKit platform on iOS 11 to project 3D models of featured holes on any flat surface. Fans will be able to select their favorite player on the golf course, compare shot trails from each round, and compare the shots of different players.

The first featured hole will be No. 6 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational starting March 15, while shot trails can be reviewed from the seventh hole of last month's AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am tournament. The end goal is for at least one hole to be featured at every tournament on the PGA TOUR schedule.

Commentary: PGA TOUR AR is free on the App Store for iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone X, and iPad Pro models. The app is somewhat rudimentary at launch, but an update later this year will enable fans to view 3D shot trails for selected players at live golf tournaments.

- Apple Bluewater re-opens Saturday, March 24, according to a photo shared yesterday by Joe White on Twitter: The store has been closed for nearly eight months to allow for renovations to be completed. Apple Bluewater is located in Greenhithe, Kent, on the edge of Greater London in England.

@Apple Bluewater re-opening March 24 after 9 month refurbishment. pic.twitter.com/8UtXL3ThmO - Joe White (@JoeWhiteLondon) March 11, 2018

- Canada to initiate mobile emergency alerts on April 6: iPhones and other LTE-enabled smartphones in Canada will receive emergency alerts from the government about life-threatening situations, such as tornadoes, flash floods, and child abductions, when necessary. On an iPhone, these will appear in the form of a push notification at no cost to the user. There is currently no way to opt out.

Commentary: This long-overdue feature, already in place in the United States, should greatly extend the visibility of emergency alerts beyond TV and radio in Canada. Test alerts, to be identified as such, are scheduled to begin in May.

Other Reading:
BuzzFeed News interviews Mikey Elkins, winner of $25,000 on HQ Trivia: The 25-year-old physical education teacher from Jacksonville, North Carolina said he was "sitting on his toilet" guessing most of the answers to win the special one-person-takes-all prize on Sunday.
AAPL sets another all-time high closing price: $181.72. Apple's market cap rises to around $922 billion.
Intel fights for its future: Jean-Louis Gassée, an Apple executive in the 1980s, argues that Intel acquiring rival chipmaker Broadcom would be a "suicidal defensive move" against a possible Broadcom-Qualcomm merger, which could improve Qualcomm's relationship with Apple.For more Apple news and rumors coverage, visit our Front Page, Mac Blog, and iOS Blog. Also visit our forums to join in the discussion.

Article Link: Quick Takes: PGA TOUR Gets Augmented, Interview With HQ Trivia's $25,000 Winner, and More

 

[Cosmosent]

AAPL is now trading $922B / $700B = 1.32x above where it should be !

 

[AngerDanger]

Jeez, Apple's stores look cooler closed than most others' do when they're open.

 

[nt5672]

8 months to renovate? Seems like they are using the same project management team they use to update Mac's?

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I’ll have to try that PGA TOUR app. I’ve yet to really venture into AR, but that might give me a reason to try it.

Also, I’m getting the “You’re a winner” Amazon phishing ad on MR quite a bit now. Just got it loading this thread on my iPhone. Been happening almost everyday.

 

[Tech198]

"On an iPhone, these will appear in the form of a push notification at no cost to the user. There is currently no way to opt out."

Why would anyone wanna opt-out of emergency warnings ?

Always helpful in these situations to stay-up-to-date, but if your mobile runs out of battery... (Well, didn't think of that one did they).

That's an awful lot of text messages.... but other counties should get involved too.

 

[Brandhouse]

This thing of merging 3 stories into 1 is dumb.

As I user so that I can read comments about the story I'm interested in I have to read through all the comments, this is annoying.
[doublepost=1520895164][/doublepost]

That's an awful lot of text messages.... but other counties should get involved too.

Australia have had this for a couple of years now. And yes, I agree, why would you want to opt out from receiving notifications relevant to your area? It could easily be something that is life threatening to you.
[doublepost=1520895229][/doublepost]So, I make 2 comments to two totally different stories and my comments are merged?! How stupid!!!

 

[IJ Reilly]

"On an iPhone, these will appear in the form of a push notification at no cost to the user. There is currently no way to opt out."

Why would anyone wanna opt-out of emergency warnings ?

Always helpful in these situations to stay-up-to-date, but if your mobile runs out of battery... (Well, didn't think of that one did they).

That's an awful lot of text messages.... but other counties should get involved too.

I hope Canada implements this system better than in the U.S. Here in California we learned the very hard way that it does not work very well at all.

 

[prasand]

That Intel / Broadcom / Qualcomm opinion piece is interesting. The comments too.

 

[katbel]

I hope Canada implements this system better than in the U.S. Here in California we learned the very hard way that it does not work very well at all.

Worked too well in Hawaii, January 13th ....sigh

P.s. I don't like merged news

 

[wozmatic]

PGA Tour AR crashes at the loading screen. Can't open it...

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Why would anyone wanna opt-out of emergency warnings ?

I know I do. They don't work very well, in my experience. For example, getting a flash flood warning all night long when I know I don't live where flooding is an issue.

PGA Tour AR crashes at the loading screen. Can't open it...

Mine loads to the camera, but it’s too dark in my living room right now to continue. Seems to be working though.

 

[PsyOpWarlord]

In the US you can toggle AMBER Alerts and Emergency Alerts on and off individually.

At times they can get very annoying and obnoxious. The photo in the article shows how it get abused. Strong wings or fire danger should not be an emergency alert that blares the siren overriding your mute switch or volume control.

It really needs more customization. A "Watch" where only a potential exists should not override your settings. Watches you should be allowed to customize/set so they only vibrate and show on the screen if you want. Same thing with AMBER Alerts. Even some thunderstorm warnings should still fall in this category. If it's not immediate life/death you should be able to set it to vibrate only.

Only when there is an actual "Warning" such as a tornado touched down/flood in progress/actual fire evacuation for the area you are in that requires "immediate" shelter/evacuation should you actually get the emergency alert that overrides your sound settings to blare the alarm.

 

[nsayer]

"On an iPhone, these will appear in the form of a push notification at no cost to the user. There is currently no way to opt out."

Why would anyone wanna opt-out of emergency warnings ?

Not everybody is you.

In some cases, for some people, they can do more harm than good, particularly when they're poorly implemented, as has been historically the case south of the border.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Worked too well in Hawaii, January 13th ....sigh

P.s. I don't like merged news

Likewise.

The Hawaii incident was just one of the many recent examples of the failures of this system to provide timely, accurate and clear information. We were in the Thomas Fire evacuation area in December. The alerts we got were often confusing or too late to be useful.
[doublepost=1520919628][/doublepost]

In the US you can toggle AMBER Alerts and Emergency Alerts on and off individually.

At times they can get very annoying and obnoxious. The photo in the article shows how it get abused. Strong wings or fire danger should not be an emergency alert that blares the siren overriding your mute switch or volume control.

It really needs more customization. A "Watch" where only a potential exists should not override your settings. Watches you should be allowed to customize/set so they only vibrate and show on the screen if you want. Same thing with AMBER Alerts. Even some thunderstorm warnings should still fall in this category. If it's not immediate life/death you should be able to set it to vibrate only.

Only when there is an actual "Warning" such as a tornado touched down/flood in progress/actual fire evacuation for the area you are in that requires "immediate" shelter/evacuation should you actually get the emergency alert that overrides your sound settings to blare the alarm.

I'm not sure this calls so much for user customization as for better system design. A lot of these warning levels come with standard definitions but what I found from the Thomas Fire and mudslides is that the local public safety agencies don't use consistent definitions of what it means for an evacuation order to be voluntary or mandatory.

 

[Lewis Clark]

In addition to our standalone articles covering the latest Apple news and rumors at MacRumors, this Quick Takes column provides a bite-sized recap of other headlines about Apple and its competitors on weekdays.

Monday, March 12

- PGA TOUR introduces augmented reality app: PGA TOUR AR uses Apple's ARKit platform on iOS 11 to project 3D models of featured holes on any flat surface. Fans will be able to select their favorite player on the golf course, compare shot trails from each round, and compare the shots of different players.

The first featured hole will be No. 6 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational starting March 15, while shot trails can be reviewed from the seventh hole of last month's AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am tournament. The end goal is for at least one hole to be featured at every tournament on the PGA TOUR schedule.

Commentary: PGA TOUR AR is free on the App Store for iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone X, and iPad Pro models. The app is somewhat rudimentary at launch, but an update later this year will enable fans to view 3D shot trails for selected players at live golf tournaments.

- Apple Bluewater re-opens Saturday, March 24, according to a photo shared yesterday by Joe White on Twitter: The store has been closed for nearly eight months to allow for renovations to be completed. Apple Bluewater is located in Greenhithe, Kent, on the edge of Greater London in England.

- Canada to initiate mobile emergency alerts on April 6: iPhones and other LTE-enabled smartphones in Canada will receive emergency alerts from the government about life-threatening situations, such as tornadoes, flash floods, and child abductions, when necessary. On an iPhone, these will appear in the form of a push notification at no cost to the user. There is currently no way to opt out.

Commentary: This long-overdue feature, already in place in the United States, should greatly extend the visibility of emergency alerts beyond TV and radio in Canada. Test alerts, to be identified as such, are scheduled to begin in May.

Other Reading:
BuzzFeed News interviews Mikey Elkins, winner of $25,000 on HQ Trivia: The 25-year-old physical education teacher from Jacksonville, North Carolina said he was "sitting on his toilet" guessing most of the answers to win the special one-person-takes-all prize on Sunday.
AAPL sets another all-time high closing price: $181.72. Apple's market cap rises to around $922 billion.
Intel fights for its future: Jean-Louis Gassée, an Apple executive in the 1980s, argues that Intel acquiring rival chipmaker Broadcom would be a "suicidal defensive move" against a possible Broadcom-Qualcomm merger, which could improve Qualcomm's relationship with Apple.For more Apple news and rumors coverage, visit our Front Page, Mac Blog, and iOS Blog. Also visit our forums to join in the discussion.

Article Link: Quick Takes: PGA TOUR Gets Augmented, Interview With HQ Trivia's $25,000 Winner, and More

[doublepost=1520930683][/doublepost]Australia has a warning system that works pretty well. It intersects the cell-tower coverage with the emergency area to calculate which cellphones are in the danger zone, then sends SMS messages exclusively to those users. When the mobile receives the message it send a delivery-receipt message back to the system, so that the message is only received once. It's been running for years now.

 

[chublet]

Ive been up to Bluewater twice over the last year to buy Apple stuff and couldn't believe it was still shut! When you consider it is basically a glass-fronted box with a few nice tables and shelves I think the guys who were 'renovating' it were definitely getting paid by the hour...

 

[NeilHD]

Am I missing something with the PGA app? Does it just put the course map onto the table, or wherever it is you're sitting? Why is that better than just showing it on the screen?

What would be cool with AR would be something like FunGolf, but instead of showing you distances on their own map, if it overlaid the distances on the actual landscape whilst playing.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Am I missing something with the PGA app? Does it just put the course map onto the table, or wherever it is you're sitting? Why is that better than just showing it on the screen?

Just gave it a try, and it's actually kinda fun. It basically allows you to move your phone around to look at a hole from whatever angle you want. You can also zoom. I just tried it on my iPhone, but I could see it being even better on an iPad. Below is #7 at Pebble.