Yearly Archives: 2012

Apple retail leadership tells employees “We messed up”

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NASDAQ:

Apple Inc.’s retail boss told employees that the company made mistakes with its staffing levels, leading to news reports that the company was cutting employees, according to two people familiar with the matter.Apple acknowledged the retail staffing changes. “Making these changes was a mistake and the changes are being reversed,” said Kristin Huguet, an Apple spokeswoman. “Our employees are our most important asset and the ones who provide the world-class service our customers deserve.”

This comes on the heels of a detailed IFOAppleStore report about various changes Senior VP of Retail John Browett was making to the retail environment increase the the stores contribution to company profit.

Taylor Guitars Road Show

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The Taylor Guitars Road Show is all about guitars, giving you a chance to talk shop with our team from the Taylor factory. Whether you’re new to Taylor, a longtime Taylor owner, or thinking about getting your first guitar, we think you’ll find our Road Show a fun, informative event.

My Taylor is the best acoustic guitar I’ve ever owned, seen or played.

Bark at the Moon

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Ozzy and Zakk are one of the greatest combinations in Rock. […]

Audio compression explained

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DAW Master Sedric Pieretti shows you, using different DAW’s and plug-ins from different manufacturers. Everything you need to know about compressor plug-ins and how to use them in your productions and songs is right here. Plus, the information you’ll learn can be used on any hardware unit or software plug-in compressor made.

Using a compressor in your mix properly is an art form.

Apple responds to DOJ in eBook case

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The proposed settlement would require the three settling publishers — HarperCollins, Hachette and Simon & Schuster — to terminate their existing agency pricing contracts with Apple. Apple says that isn’t fair: “The Government is seeking to impose a remedy on Apple before there has been any finding of an antitrust violation.” This case, the company states, revolves around “an alleged conspiracy to force Amazon to adopt agency.” So a settlement “enjoining collusion or precluding publishers from forcing agency on Amazon would be appropriate,” but Apple is entitled to defend its contracts in court.

It does seem unfair to impose a settlement without giving Apple a chance to defend itself.

Apple TV for live broadcast television

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Matthew Panzarino:

Apple has begun talks in preparation for a set-top box device that could be used to watch live TV as well as view other content, reports Jessica E. Vascellaro and Shalini Ramachandran at The Wall Street Journal.This would apparently be a new direction that would let Apple get a stronger presence in the living room It would involve them getting deals with cable providers, which the report says has not happened.

The Android fragmentation problem

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MG Siegler:

The problem is that all of these different devices require testing for each and every app. They all create a different Android experiences — some in subtle ways, some in big ways. Some run certain Android apps, others don’t. Some apps work fine on one device then are buggy as hell on another one. Sometimes this gets fixed, sometimes it doesn’t. It depends on the popularity of that device and the resources the development team has.

Yes, that’s a problem.

Bang Bang the Witch is Dead

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Although Adobe is no longer actively developing the [Flash] player for Android, Blackberry or Symbian devices – and never released it for Apple iOS or Windows Phone handsets – it has said it would continue to offer security updates and bug fixes for existing versions until September 2013.

Not as successful as they said it would be.

Netflix adds “post-play”

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When you finish watching an episode of a TV show, we’ll minimize the credits and tee-up the next episode. If you do nothing, the next episode will start to play in 15 seconds. You can also stop it to get more information or select another episode.

This is awesome.

Amplified: Rapid Beaver

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Jim Dalrymple and Dan Benjamin talk about a unibody iPhone, Apple’s cable television patent victory, Origin going multiplatform, the iBookstore changing the game for textbooks, more of the Samsung v. Apple lawsuit, as well as a new one for Apple with Microsoft, and rabid beavers.

Would you swim In the world’s scariest pool?

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. Gadling:

How far would you go to get a bird’s-eye city view while swimming? If you’re staying at the Holiday Inn Shanghai Pudong Kangqiao, you’ll get to take a dip in their glass-bottom pool, which appears to be suspended in mid-air as it partially hangs over a 24-story drop.

Easy answer to the headline question. HELL NO.

Disillusioned

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Harry Marks:

Business Insider, CNet, ZDNet, eWeek, Gizmodo, and the rest (there really are too many to name) aren’t news organizations, they’re the online equivalents of 24-hour cable news noise networks with half the facts and one-third the personalities.These websites perpetuate a myth that they are well-informed, knowledgable news outlets that tell the world what it needs to know. What I’ve learned, however, is just the opposite: they’re ad-driven FUD machines that run on pageviews stolen from attention-deficient readers who would rather digest a shocking headline on a digital tabloid than read thoughtful commentary provided on an actual news site.

Harry brings up so many great points. Read it.

An exclusive social network

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Joe Caiati:

For many, the lure of an exclusive social network and the lust for reaching the masses will keep most attached to both services; including myself. As much as I would rather just be navigating to one unified service, App.net has the potential to disrupt my social experience. A disruption that can turn out to be pleasant surprise or another failed startup.

Joe brings up some good points about App.net. It’s intriguing, but right now people are splitting their time between the two. Until it gains critical mass, we really won’t know how it will do. But the price — any price — may stop that in its tracks.

Many have asked if I supported App.net. I tried but something happened during the sign-up process. I contacted them via the support email and tried on Twitter to get a response, but never heard back. So, no I didn’t pay for the service, but I would have.

Ozzy Osbourne’s live setup

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Greg Price has been doing Ozzy’s live setup for a lot of years, so he knows what he’s talking about. He lists the mics used and the plugins he uses on each channel. He even gives you the presets to download for each plugin. I’ve known Greg for a number of years and he is an incredibly talented audio engineer.

Squatters

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Bryan Larrick:

I looked on my server, and there was a whole other website squatting on my domain, selling vpn access to god knows who out of who knows where. I’d been hacked.

Wow.

Samsung says Apple ripped off email, photo and music features

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The ‘460 patent protect elements of email and photo browsing in a camera-equipped device. Specifically, it covers three different functions: sending a text-only email, sending an email with an attached photo, and stepping through different photos in a gallery mode. According to Dr. Yang’s testimony, the iPhone 4, 3G, and 3GS — along with the iPad 2 and fourth-generation iPod touch — all infringe the patent on both iOS 4 and iOS 5.

It’ll be interesting to see how Apple argues this.

Samsung designer says she didn’t copy Apple’s icons

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A Samsung Electronics designer testified on Tuesday that she didn’t copy Apple when creating the icons for the Galaxy line of products.“Not at all,” senior user experience designer Jeeyuen Wang said, through an interpreter.

Oh, okay then, let’s just cancel this trial and move on.

iBookstore is a game changer for textbooks

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After writing about how iPads and YourTeacher helped raise math scores by 49%, I decided to speak with YourTeacher CEO Charlie Hermes to find out more about his company, and what it’s like to publish textbooks on the iBookstore. […]

Dots

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An interesting look at dots and pixels as John Gruber makes his way from a Pac-Man coin-op machine to a Retina MacBook Pro.

Steve Jobs’ Palo Alto home burglarized

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More than $60,000 worth of “computers and personal items” were allegedly stolen, but Flattery declined to say whether they belonged to Jobs, who died last year at the age of 56, or another family member.

RIM says it will win

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Global BlackBerry sales tumbled 43 percent last quarter as RIM’s aging lineup of devices failed to match the consumer appeal of Android phones and Apple’s iPhone. BB10 will change RIM’s fortunes, Heins said today.“We’re here to win,” he said. “We’re not here to fight for third or fourth place.”

Maybe RIM is tired of Samsung getting all the attention and says stupid things to turn things around.