Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2020

When Steve Jobs was still running the show at Apple, I used to watch a lot of his keynote presentations at Macworld Expo, Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), and other special events. These “Stevenote” presentations were masterful speeches that not only featured compelling product announcements but were accompanied by slick audiovisuals, message clarity, and showmanship. Since Steve Jobs’ passing, I have been less interested in watching keynote presentations. After all, without the blue jeans, black turtlenecks, and “One more thing” announcements, they’ve simply been less interesting to watch because Steve Jobs set the bar so high.

However, I did watch parts of the Apple WWDC keynote presentation which took place this past week. Part of what drew me to this session was that I wanted to see what an all-virtual presentation would look like, as the coronavirus pandemic has forced all companies to either cancel events or transition to virtual formats. I thought that it worked really well, if not better than other events. Since I’ve never attended an Apple presentation in person, I’ve only watched them online, and it made no difference to me that there was no audience reacting to the presentations. It also looks like the presentations may have been pre-recorded and that some presenters might have used teleprompters (I’m not sure), but that was fine too, and in fact I found all the presentations to be pretty polished. I most appreciated the fact that Apple inserted chapter markers into the video so you could jump straight to the a section of interest: introduction, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, privacy, tvOS, macOS, and Mac. These chapter markers are embedded into the above link as well as the YouTube version of the presentation. For more videos, visit this site.

Perhaps the biggest news of the conference was Apple’s announcement that it would transition its processors from Intel to Apple silicon. It was a little skimpy on details, but presumably they will be powerful and energy-efficient chips that will begin shipping in Macs before the end of 2020. They didn’t say which Macs would sport the new processor first, but they did say that all Macs will eventually transition to Apple silicon over the next 2 years. This is not the first time Apple has made such a big change in its Machintosh processors. When the original Macintosh was introduced in 1984, it used Motorola 68000 series processors. In 1994, the Mac transitioned to PowerPC processors which were a 3-way alliance between Apple, IBM, and Motorola. At WWDC 2005, Apple announced another transition, this time to Intel processors. But alas, rumor has it that Apple’s decision to make its own processors was driven largely by a number bugs with Intel’s Skylake architecture. Apple claims that the transition should be relatively easy for developers to accommodate.

Hopefully the transition to Apple silicon will be painless for end users too. Namely, I am most concerned about the ability to run Windows on my Mac. It currently sounds like Windows will not be available through Bootcamp on Apple silicon machines. However, it also sounds like Windows virtualization through apps like Parallels Desktop will continue to be supported. I look forward to seeing how Apple silicon will benefit Mac users over the long run.

Protests and COVID-19 Transmission

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder by the Minneapolis police on May 25, protests around the nation (and around the world) began May 26 and continue to this day.

Based on common sense as well as the rationale provided in this article, one would expect there to be a rise in COVID-19 cases. However, given that it may take several weeks from the time someone is infected with SARS-CoV-2 to the development of symptoms to seeking healthcare to waiting for public health data to be updated, I will examine the numbers again in a week or two to see if we can detect a bump in the COVID-19 case counts beyond the baseline rates which were already on the rise before the protests began. I support the protests and hope that any related increase in COVID-19 cases will be below the limit of detection.

UPDATE 7/1/2020: An interesting research paper demonstrates that the Black Lives Matter protests were not associated with an increase in COVID-19 cases and in fact shows that in cities with protests, social distancing behavior actually increased—people spent more time at home on average.

Reopening Criteria Visualized

Moments after I wrote my last blog in which I suggested that everyone should have a view into reopening criteria across the United States, I came across https://www.covidexitstrategy.org which does just that. Below the summary map of the United States that uses red/yellow/green indicators to show progress toward reopening measures, state-level data are presented in a table below:

A second table provides numbers and graphs to depict trends in COVID-19 transmission:

A third table visualizes health system capacity in each state:

Finally, a fourth table displays how each state is doing on testing:

And for you data geeks out there, click on “Get the data” to download the data in CSV format. Happy analyzing everyone!

This Is What a COVID-19 Dashboard Should Look Like

Last month, a scientist named Rebekah Jones was allegedly fired from the Florida Department of Health for refusing to manipulate data so that it would support the state’s reopening plan. According to NPR, Jones wrote, “I would not expect the new team to continue the same level of accessibility and transparency that I made central to the process during the first two months. After all, my commitment to both is largely (arguably entirely) the reason I am no longer managing it.” A rebuttal from the Florida governor is provided here.

Whatever the circumstances, Jones subsequently created her own dashboard which is available through a portal. While the new dashboard currently is dependent on Florida Department of Health data which Jones criticized upon her departure, the team is “working to collect the data without depending on DOH’s live updates.” One feature that I think the public should find particularly useful is the “Reopening Criteria” tab as pictured below:

The reopening criteria that are displayed on the dashboard include (1) Decrease in ER visits fro COVID-like illness, (2) Decrease in ER visits for influenza-like illness, and (3) Decrease in new cases by date. These are all very reasonable criteria to me, and they are similar to other reopening criteria that I recently profiled.

According to NPR, “only two of the state’s 67 counties at the moment meet the state's criteria for further easing restrictions.” Assuming that the data feeding these criteria are correct, one might conclude that Florida’s recently announced plan to reopen schools is not supported by data.

It would be nice if all states and counties had access to data that are presented in the context of their local reopening criteria. It would help inform conversations among the public and among officials who make decisions about public policy.

Can You Trust COVID-19 Case Counts?

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about a 2-week decline in COVID-19 case counts in Los Angeles, based on data from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health COVID-19 Dashboard. Here is the same figure from my May 30 blog for your convenience:

It seemed like things were getting better until I looked at data from USA Facts. After downloading the data and generating a 7-day rolling average, I got this result:

The 2-week decline in COVID-19 case counts was nowhere to be seen, and in fact it showed a steady increase in new cases/day. Thinking that this must be due to a discrepancy between the data collection methods of LA County and USA Facts, I went back to the LA County data to update my figures and got this result:

The the 2-week decline in COVID-19 case counts is nowhere to be seen in the LA County data download! What happened to our impression that Los Angeles was on the road to recovery? Did the Sith Lord who erased Kamino from the Jedi archives fudge the LA County COVID-19 data too? To further investigate, I compared the LA County data from today (June 13) against a copy of the LA County data that I downloaded when I wrote my other blog (May 30) 2 weeks ago. I saw differences in the case counts and plotted them over time:

It turns out that new cases/day generally stayed the same or increased, although on some days the numbers went down. However, in the last 2 weeks before May 30, there was a significant increase in cases/day between the May 30 download and the June 13 download, which completely erased the download trend in the 7-day rolling average number of cases/day. I suspect that this is due to a backlog of statistical data that had yet to be entered, and given that numbers went down on some days, maybe some data were re-categorized into other days or errors were corrected. Whatever the case, from these observations, I conclude that you can’t really trust the numbers until a couple weeks later when the data stewards are mostly caught up with data entry and the numbers stabilize.

A couple weeks ago, I thought that Los Angeles was starting to crush the curve, but unfortunately the COVID-19 numbers tell us that we are not, and in fact things are getting worse.

Black Lives Matter Protests Visualized

The protests against racism and police brutality targeting black individuals has been taking place on a worldwide stage. The following map visualizes the distribution of protests around the world:



The following map visualizes the distribution of protests in the United States:



Additional data are presented in tabular format, click on the links for more information.

Aerial Photos of Black Lives Matter Plaza

On June 5, 2020, a two-block section of 16th Street NW in downtown Washington DC was renamed by Mayor Muriel Bowser to “Black Lives Matter Plaza” as part of ongoing protests against racism and police brutality aimed at black Americans. Earlier that day, the Department of Public Works painted a mural on the street with the words “Black Lives Matter” in 35-foot yellow capital letters. Today, June 8, Apple Maps not only reflects the new street name but also shows the newly painted mural from its aerial photos:



Google Maps reflects the new street name, but its photos have not yet been updated to include the mural:



There are many other mapping applications that may be updated with new images over time, so if you want to view them, enter GPS Coordinates 38.901317, -77.036539 and check for yourself.

Putting the COVID-19 Death Toll in Perspective

On June 1, 2020, the death toll from COVID-19 was 104,869. An NBC News article provides some visualizations that put those numbers into perspective.

• In 4 months this year, more Americans died of COVID-19 than those who died of diabetes in all of 2018.
• On average, more than 1,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 every day during the pandemic, as of June 1.
• The COVID-19 daily death rate is more than three times higher than even the harsh 2017 flu season, which killed 61,000 people.
• The COVID-19 daily death rate is more than 10 times that of car crash fatalities in 2018.
• 2,977 people were killed in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. As June 1, the daily average of COVID-19 deaths equal that total every three days.

The following table compares selected wars and health issues with the current COVID-19 deaths (100,000 and counting) and average deaths per day (>1,000):



Remember to follow your local re-opening recommendations and stay safe America!