Yearly Archives: 2015

Neil posted this to Facebook today:

Streaming has ended for me. I hope this is ok for my fans.

It’s not because of the money, although my share (like all the other artists) was dramatically reduced by bad deals made without my consent.

It’s about sound quality. I don’t need my music to be devalued by the worst quality in the history of broadcasting or any other form of distribution. I don’t feel right allowing this to be sold to my fans. It’s bad for my music.

For me, It’s about making and distributing music people can really hear and feel. I stand for that.

When the quality is back, I’ll give it another look. Never say never.

Neil Young

Global Human Resources Chief Denise Young Smith said at Fortune Brainstorm Tech on Tuesday morning that Apple’s next “diversity report” will come “sometime this summer” and will reveal some progress on recruiting diverse employees. “We did have some movement in our hiring or women and hiring of minorities,” said Young Smith, noting that about 35% of Apple’s recent recruits are women. The upcoming report, which Young Smith claims will have “more transparency” than its report last year, will show an uptick in hiring African-American and Hispanic recruits as well.

Apple should hire the most qualified person for the job, regardless of their gender or color of their skin.

They guys at 3 Monkeys Amps are building me a new amp and are documenting the progress on Facebook. This beast is hand-wired and built from scratch by hand. I can’t wait!

A book review from Om Malik. It sounds like an interesting read.

Apple on Wednesday updated its iconic iPods with new colors and a host of new features for the iPod touch. […]

Something’s coming.

“‘I can’t support this, you need to pay us from the first stream,’” Borchetta, the CEO of Big Machine Records, says he told Apple execs. “And those conversations led up to the weekend where Taylor posted the blog.”

Taylor Swift did a great thing.

I haven’t used this, but Yamaha is a great music company. This may be worth checking out as you look for an outdoor speak this summer.

Apple UK:

Apple Pay has officially launched in the UK. Users will be able to useApple Pay at more than 250,000 retailers with support from eight banks UK banks. The service is currently supported with credit and debit cards from American Express, Visa, Mastercard, First Direct, HSBC, Nationwide, NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander, and Ulster Bank.

Good news for our friends in the UK but the downside is purchases will be limited to a £20 cap that will expand to only £30 in September. So no buying big ticket items just yet. The £20 will just cover two pints of lager and a packet of crisps.

Ben Brooks’ post on the problems keeping up with a personal journal resonated with me. I’ve tried this over the years too and could never keep it up.

Merlin and Jim talk about Apple Music.

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CBC:

A CBC News crew was interviewing an Ontario police officer as a road-rage incident was happening right behind them.

CBC’s Neil Herland was speaking with OPP Const. Graham Williamson about a fatal collision on Black Creek Drive in Toronto on a nearby overpass, but shouting interrupted the interview, which was quickly captured by CBC camerawoman Tyna Poulin.

“Hey! Get back in the car,” Williamson yelled.

Less “road rage” and more, “road slightly peeved off”. No punches thrown, no gun fire, no horns honking – yeah, so Canadian.

Apple on Monday released an update for iTunes supposedly fixing some issue with iTunes Match and Apple Music. You can download the update by launching the App Store on your Mac and clicking Update.

Observatory:

Sometimes I wonder if people understand how organizations like Slice work. They make money by selling their services to client companies, and they attract new business by sending out press releases that become “news.” The more shocking the story, the more PR they get — and, in theory, the more new clients they can reel in.

In this case, Slice got exactly what it hoped for. Its name was attached to one of the biggest stories of the week. But, in the absence of any numbers from Apple, just how believable is the story?

As someone who is forced to read this stuff for a living, watching this particular feeding frenzy is simultaneously frustrating and unsurprising. While the general public’s lack of critical thinking when it comes to the media is slightly understandable, when the media itself is guilty of the inability to look at press releases and see them for what they actually are – simple promotion – it’s particularly aggravating. We can’t expect the consumer to think critically when the media refuses to do so.

Comic Book Resources:

After 25 years, Berkeley Breathed is returning to his Pulitzer Prize-winning comic strip, “Bloom County.” Breathed announced the new incarnation of the politically-minded strip via a post on Facebook that featured him working on a new comic with the words “Bloom County 2015” at the top.

“Bloom County” originally ran from December 1980 until 1989, just two years after he won the Pulitzer. The characters, such as Bill the Cat, Opus the Penguin, Hodge-Podge the Rabbit, Milo Bloom, and Cutter John, lived on in the Sunday-only strip “Outland” from 1989 to 1995, as well as “Opus” from 2003 to 2008.

Along with “The Far Side” and “Calvin and Hobbes”, “Bloom County” was always one of my favorite comic strips. For those of you who know me, you’ll know how excited I am to have Opus back. Thanks to my friend Sly for the link and Donald Trump for the inspiration.

ZDNet:

While some smartphone makers chase market share, Apple is pulling away when it comes to profits: For every dollar of operating profit in the smartphone market, Apple is nabbing $0.92, leaving the others fighting for scraps.

That estimate comes from Canaccord Genuity as noted by the Wall Street Journal over the weekend.

Considering that Apple’s iPhone sales globally account for roughly 20 percent of all smartphones sold, the situation for its competitors will only get worse.

Android users and vendors can and do brag about market share. I’m sure Apple is very happy with profit share and wouldn’t have it any other way.

Business Insider:

If everything goes according to plan, a NASA spacecraft, called New Horizons, will fly by Pluto at 7:49 am ET. New Horizons is the first spacecraft in history to ever visit Pluto, and it’s been a long time coming after 9 years in space.

NASA will stream live countdown coverage of the event starting at 7:30 am, followed by a briefing on the mission from 8:00 to 9:00 am ET.

It’s more than a little mind boggling to think that something we flung into space nine years ago is now about to send us pictures of the tiny little planet.

Macstories:

Earlier this week, Apple released the first public betas of iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan, and, knowing that would be the case, I cautioned MacStories readers against leaving negative reviews on the App Store for third-party apps that developers can’t update with new features and fixes yet.

Unfortunately, since yesterday I’ve already seen tweets from the developers of two excellent iOS apps – Screens and Day One – post screenshots of negative reviews they’ve received by users who are unsurprisingly running into problems when using their apps on the iOS 9 beta.

People posting negative reviews on the Apple Store because apps broke while they were running a beta fundamentally misunderstand what the point of a public beta is.