[VIDEO] Should be no contest, right? The iPhone 6s was released almost exactly a year ago and the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was just released.
Nope. The iPhone 6s absolutely smokes the Note 7. Watch for yourself.
Tim Cook just unlocked more than $100 million in bonuses
MacRumors:
Upon reaching the five-year mark, Cook has today unlocked previously awarded stock bonuses currently worth over $100 million. The bonuses are tied to both his tenure and Apple’s performance under his leadership, including its total shareholder return relative to the S&P 500 index.
Cook’s bonus includes 700,000 tenure-based restricted stock units that vested today as part of a larger compensation package of over 4.7 million shares awarded on August 24, 2011, in addition to his first of six annual installments of 280,000 tenure-based restricted stock units that vested today. The combined 980,000 shares are valued at nearly $106.7 million based on AAPL’s closing price of $108.85 on Tuesday.
Helluva day for Mr. Cook. Buy yourself something nice.
How Tim Cook has changed Apple in five years
Terrific piece from The Telegraph, an objective look at Apple then and now, from Tim Cook’s first day as CEO through today, with lots of charts and infographics that really tell the tale.
Replacing Steve Jobs: How Apple CEO Tim Cook has fared five years later
Five years ago today, Steve Jobs officially passed the CEO torch on to Tim Cook. From the Wall Street Journal:
Now Apple is the world’s largest company by market value and remains one of the most influential. Its $53 billion in net income last year was greater than the combined earnings of technology behemoths Facebook Inc., Google’s parent Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. Apple recently sold its billionth iPhone.
Let that soak in. These are amazing accomplishments, proud laurels for any CEO, especially when you consider that Apple has, at the same time, fought harder than most large companies for social and environmental change.
At the same time, though, Apple’s growth is slowing, its stock is stagnating and it is facing more concerns than ever about its future. Underscoring all of this is one key question that Mr. Cook will likely never escape: Are Apple’s best days behind it?
That second paragraph is indeed key. Not the question, but the phrase “will likely never escape”. Five years in, and Tim Cook is still looked upon suspiciously, as an interloper riding on Steve Jobs’ coattails. Sadly, for many, that will never change.
How to set up Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) so you can use your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac
One of the features I’m most excited about in this new round of betas is the ability to use my Apple Watch to automatically unlock my Mac. To set this up yourself, you’ll need an Apple Watch running watchOS 3 and a Mac running Sierra. You’ll also need your iPhone and Mac to be using Two-Factor Authentication, as opposed to the older Two-Step Verification (2SV).
Click through to the original post for all the details that will get you through this process.
Coming this holiday season from Microsoft: The Xbox Onesie
My gut tells me Microsoft will sell a lot of these.
A quick test to see if the network you are on is fast enough for Netflix
Netflix set up this site to give you a relatively real-time sense of your current networks download speed. No upload test, but you won’t need that for Netflix.
Bookmark this one and pass it along.
Barbra Streisand calls Tim Cook with Siri complaint. A fix is in the works.
Barbra Streisand was doing a guest spot on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday when the host, Scott Simon, brought out his iPhone, asked Siri a question:
Scott: Siri, who’s the only female vocalist who’s had hit records for six straight decades?
Siri: Barbra Streisand
Barbra: (laughs) She pronounces my name wrong. Streisand with a soft “s”, like sand.
Streisand then goes on to tell the story of her phone call to Tim Cook to complain, and Tim’s personal response.
Click on the main post to listen to the audio.
Recode: Amazon’s cheaper, Echo-only music service
Recode:
Amazon wants to launch a music subscription service that would work the same way services from Apple, Spotify and many others work: $10 a month, for all the music you can stream, anywhere you want to stream it.
But Amazon is also working on a second service that would differ in two significant ways from industry rivals: It would cost half the price, and it would only work on Amazon’s Echo hardware.
Industry sources say Amazon would like to launch both services in September, but has yet to finalize deals with major music labels and publishers. One sticking point, sources say, is whether Amazon will sell the cheaper service for $4 or $5 a month.
I can’t imagine a music service that I could only use in one place. One of the things I love about Apple Music is that it is always with me: on my computer, on my iPhone, iPad, in my car, always available.
I like the idea of a cheaper service, that might move me, but only if I didn’t have to sacrifice portability.
Apple acquires personal health data startup Gliimpse
Fast Company:
Silicon Valley-based Gliimpse has built a personal health data platform that enables any American to collect, personalize, and share a picture of their health data.
And:
The acquisition happened earlier this year, but Apple has been characteristically quiet about it. The company has now confirmed the purchase, saying: “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”
And this from founder Anil Sethi’s LinkedIn page:
As a consumer of healthcare, I leave behind a bread-crumb-trail of medical info wherever I’ve been seen. But, I’m unable to easily access or share my own data. Obamacare is one of several forcing functions federally mandating physicians and hospitals give us our data: meds, labs, allergies . . .you get the idea. However, there’s no single Electronic Health Record that all physicians use, sigh. Worse, there isn’t even a common file format across a 1000+ systems.
Enter Gliimpse: your personal health data, in the palm of your hands. Better than portals, we enable patients to collect their lifelong history, so they can share it with their care network – physicians, friends and family.
The Internet of poorly working things
Jean-Louis Gassée, writing for Monday Note, takes on the Internet of Things: the good (industrial, smart cities) and the (mostly) bad (consumer electronics). A witty, insightful piece that manages to use the made-up-by-the-internet word persphinctery.
Tracking Bluetooth battery usage in iOS 10
Go to the main post for some detailed instructions on installing the iOS 10 Batteries widget and using it to track your connected device battery usage. And please pass this post along.
Apple drops ‘Store’ from Apple Store branding
Juli Clover, MacRumors:
Apple appears to be making a slight branding change to its retail business, dropping the “Store” moniker when referring to its Apple Store locations. Apple has already made the change online, and all of its store pages now refer to stores by names like “Apple Union Square” or “Apple Valley Fair” or “Apple The Grove,” instead of “Apple Store, Valley Fair” or “Apple Store, The Grove.”
It’s a change that appears to have started rolling out with the launch of the newer Apple Stores, like the Union Square location in San Francisco. Apple has always referred to that store as just Apple Union Square, and over the course of the last few days, the company has updated all of its retail store webpages to remove the “Store” branding. What was once “Apple Store, Fifth Avenue,” for example, is now just “Apple Fifth Avenue.”
This seems a logical path for Apple, adhering to their simplify-where-possible strategy and their adherence to minimalism. A bit like their move from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple Inc. This also addresses the internationalization issue. Apple will always be Apple, but the word store does not cross language barriers in the same way as the Apple brand by itself.
That said, I still think about going to the local Apple Store. It’ll take me some time to make the switch to heading over to Apple.
Driverless cars: When coding decisions determine life or death
Andrew Leavitt:
Are you familiar with “The Trolley Problem?” It’s an ethical thought experiment with a central moral dilemma.
An observer must decide whether to switch a trolley track when either choice will result in negative consequences for innocent bystanders. If he intervenes more lives are saved [practical] but he has then taken an active role in who lives or dies [immoral]. If he leaves the switch alone he is moral but more lives are certainly lost. There is no unequivocal “right choice” – especially as the scenario becomes more complex.
Interesting post that touches on Aasimov’s three laws of robotics and MIT’s moral machine web experiment.
Amazing falling burger shot, all captured with a handmade video rig
[VIDEO] The first 10 second of this video are the end result. The rest of the video shows how it was done. I love the mechanics behind this shot, the fact that some of it was hand designed and 3D printed, and the obvious care that went into this. Bravo!
Australia denies banks approval to jointly negotiate with Apple on ApplePay fees
Reuters:
Australia’s anti-trust regulator on Friday said it would not grant the country’s three biggest banks interim approval to collectively negotiate with Apple Inc to install their own electronic payments applications on iPhones.
Australia’s three biggest banks, including the number one lender National Australia Bank (NAB), last month lodged a joint application seeking permission to negotiate as a bloc from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).
The ACCC said that its decision not to grant the banks the interim ruling was not indicative of whether the full ruling, expected in October, would be successful or not.
And:
Apple, which operates its own Apple Pay mobile wallet, does not allow third-party electronic payment apps to be loaded onto to the hugely popular smartphones. The banks are seeking to be able to negotiate jointly for access to Apple’s phones without themselves being accused of violating anti-competition law.
The three Australian banks contend that while Apple allows apps on iPhones using other commonplace technology, such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, restricting the technology through which mobile wallets function – known as Near Field Technology – constitutes anti-competitive behaviour.
Again, this is an interim decision. The full ruling will occur in October. Hard to say whether this is in any way a good indicator.
iOS and Android Combined for Record 99% of Smartphone Sales Last Quarter
Joe Rossignol, writing for MacRumors:
The latest numbers from research firm Gartner reveal that the smartphone industry continues to be a virtual two-horse race between iOS and Android. The operating systems combined for a record 99.1% worldwide market share in the second calendar quarter of 2016, compared to 96.8% in the year-ago period.
That’s amazing to me. Just a bit more than nine years ago, neither company (Apple for iOS, Google for Android) had a horse in this race. And now, everyone else is gone or, at best, window dressing.
Twitter: An update on our efforts to combat violent extremism
Twitter’s blog:
Earlier this year, we announced we had suspended more than 125,000 accounts since mid-2015 for violating our longtime prohibition on violent threats and the promotion of terrorism and shared the steps we are taking as a company to combat this content. Since that announcement, the world has witnessed a further wave of deadly, abhorrent terror attacks across the globe. We strongly condemn these acts and remain committed to eliminating the promotion of violence or terrorism on our platform.
While our work is not done, today we are announcing that we have suspended an additional 235,000 accounts for violating our policies related to promotion of terrorism in the six months since our February 2016 post. This brings our overall number of suspensions to 360,000 since the middle of 2015. As noted by numerous third parties, our efforts continue to drive meaningful results, including a significant shift in this type of activity off of Twitter.
Read the blog post for details. Combine this with Twitter’s work on a quality filter setting and you get the sense that there’s real movement here, a focus on some of the deeper problem areas for Twitter.
With iOS 10 release a few weeks away, iOS 9 adoption hits 87 percent
Christian Zibreg, writing for iDownloadBlog:
Various editions of iOS 9 are currently installed on 87 percent of iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices, a one-point gain versus a month ago.
And:
By comparison, Google’s official stats have Android 6.0 Marshmallow powering 15.2 percent of smartphones and tablets, with the two-year-old Lollipop (5.0-5.1) OS found on more than one-third of Android hardware (35.3 percent).
Tim Cook, in China, seeks to stem Apple’s losses
Wall Street Journal:
With Apple’s sales tumbling, the Chinese government’s support waning and a new iPhone coming out, Mr. Cook is on a goodwill mission: meeting with government officials, touring Chinese Apple stores and speaking with local residents. Mr. Cook pledged to increase investment in China in a meeting with Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli in Beijing on Tuesday. He continued to the central Chinese city Chongqing on Wednesday, where he toured an Apple store with the mayor.
Side note: Chongqing is one of the five Chinese national central cities. An important place for Tim Cook to visit.
Top Chinese leaders have expressed concern over declining iPhone sales. At a meeting in May between Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and technology executives in the southern Guizhou province, Mr. Li had only one question for Terry Gou, the chairman of Apple’s main contract manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group, according to people who attended the meeting.
The premier asked Mr. Gou if production this year would decline. After trying to deflect the question, Mr. Gou confirmed that “the general trend” was downward, the people said.
This Chinese trip is obviously an important visit and comes at a critical time for Apple.
Why is the iPad Pro a ‘computer’? Because Apple’s courting the business market.
Hayley Tsukayama, writing for the Washington Post:
There’s a good reason to sell the iPad Pro as a “computer” rather than a tablet. Tablet sales have been slowing. And while computers are also in a sales slump, there is growth in the “detachables” category — devices that blend the tablet and the traditional laptop and have, well, a detachable keyboard. Casting the iPad Pro this way is important to Apple to catch the eye of businesses and business people, who may want something light but still functional for work.
Balanced with this quote from Steve Jobs:
What I love about the consumer market, that I always hated about the enterprise market, is that we come up with a product, we try to tell everybody about it, and every person votes for themselves. They go ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ and if enough of them say ‘yes,’ we get to come to work tomorrow. That’s how it works. It’s really simple. With the enterprise market, it’s not so simple. The people that use the products don’t decide for themselves, and the people that make those decisions sometimes are confused.
And:
The business market has changed in ways that blunt Jobs’s old criticisms. He didn’t like that enterprise devices weren’t personal; that’s no longer the case in a BYOD world. Even when there’s a set list of devices approved by a workplace, it almost always includes an iPhone, an iPad or at least some iOS-friendly apps.
And businesses are a great market for the tablet and the “post-PC” vision that Jobs envisioned with the introduction of the iPad. With a more mobile workforce, the iPad and the iPad Pro — along with the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 and other 2-in-1 devices — make a lot of sense for moving from hotel room to living room to board room.
Interesting take, interesting read.
NPR website to get rid of comments
NPR:
“We’ve reached the point where we’ve realized that there are other, better ways to achieve the same kind of community discussion around the issues we raise in our journalism,” he said, with money, and spending it efficiently, part of the issue. More than 5 million people each month engage with NPR on Twitter, compared to just a fraction of that number in the NPR.org comments. “In relative terms, as we set priorities, it becomes increasingly clear that the market has spoken. This is where people want to engage with us. So that’s what we’re going to emphasize,” he said.
Interesting. This is not about trolling and the high cost of moderation. Instead, it’s recognizing that engagement is moving to social media, like Twitter.
Apple device sales at Target fall 20% amid global slump
Bloomberg:
Apple Inc.’s sales of iPads, iPhones and other devices fell 20 percent at Target Corp. stores during the second quarter, confirming Apple’s struggles with a global slowdown in smartphone demand and waning interest in its out-of-date gadgets.
Hmmm. Out-of-date gadgets?
Target CEO Brian Cornell said the weakness in Apple’s sales at the retailer was “across the product suite,” and that the company is putting plans in place to better capitalize on the new devices when they hit the shelves.
“Our guests come to us looking for those products,” Cornell said on a conference call to discuss earnings. “They’re looking for the newness and the innovation. We’re putting together plans with Apple and our merchandising teams to make sure we’re ready to take advantage of that in the back half of the year.”
Hard to tell where this is Target shifting blame for poor sales and actual evidence of an Apple-specific slump. But the out-of-date gadgets stings, at least in part because of the aging MacBook Pro and Mac Pro lineup. But are those gadgets? I certainly wouldn’t call the iPhone or iPad out-of-date.
AT&T eliminating data overage charges on some plans
From the AT&T press release:
AT&T is continuing to simplify pricing with new plans that eliminate data overage charges for our wireless customers.
The new Mobile Share Advantage plans are available Aug. 21. Consumers and businesses alike can gain a wireless experience, without overage charges. Instead of overage charges, after customers use all of their high-speed data amounts, all data usage will be reduced to a maximum of 128 kbps for the rest of their bill cycle.
In effect, once you hit your data cap, your data speed will slow to a relative crawl.
From the fine print:
No charge for overage. After all your high-speed data allotments are used, all data usage is slowed to a max of 128 Kbps (2G speed) for the rest of the bill cycle. You will have basic data use for viewing a web page or checking email. Audio and video streaming, picture and video messaging, select apps and other services, as well as other usage, including sponsored data, will be impacted and may not be fully functional.
I’m assuming you can pay to add more high-speed data for the month, so this seems like a positive development.
iTunes 12.5 and iOS 10 music app add lyrics to song playback
Kirk McElhearn walks you through the process of showing lyrics on your Mac and iOS device. Love this.
Lyrics have been part of iTunes for a long time. Here’s Kirk on what’s new here:
You have always been able to add lyrics to files in iTunes, but iTunes didn’t display them other than in the Info window. On iOS, you could display them by tapping album artwork, if you had added lyrics to your files. So what’s new is the display in iTunes, in the Up Next popup, or in the MiniPlayer.
In addition, iTunes and iOS will now search for lyrics that you haven’t added to your tracks. This is new, and involves some sort of licensing, most likely with Gracenote.
So it’s a pretty big deal.
Agreed.
Deal with Cash Money (Drake’s label) expands Apple’s effort to develop TV programming
Bloomberg:
Apple Inc., the world’s richest company, is making a documentary with Cash Money Records, one of the world’s most successful hip-hop labels.
Cash Money is home to Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj and Drake, with whom Apple already has an exclusive deal. Co-founder Bryan Williams, who performs under the stage name Birdman, posted a picture to his Instagram account on Tuesday alongside Larry Jackson, the head of Apple’s original music content, with both executives holding their chins pensively. The photo celebrated Apple agreeing to fund a documentary for the label, according to people familiar with the deal. It is not, as many had speculated after the photo, an agreement to secure all of Cash Money’s new albums exclusively, the people said.
This is Apple continuing to dip their toes in the water.
Apple to boost China investments as demand slows
Reuters:
Apple Inc will boost its investment in China, one of its largest but increasingly challenging markets, and build its first Asia-Pacific research and development center in the country, Chief Executive Tim Cook said on Tuesday.
Cook made the pledge during a trip to China, at least his second in four months, as demand for Apple’s iPhones has plummeted in the world’s second-largest economy and the government remains wary about foreign technology.
Apple’s new research and development center will be built by the end of the year, Cook told Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, one of China’s most senior officials, according to CCTV, the official Chinese state broadcaster.
The center will unite Apple’s engineering and operations teams in China and is also intended to deepen the company’s ties to partners and universities, it said in a statement.
Apple earns a dollar per customer per day
Solid read, based on analysis by Horace Dediu.
Microsoft: What’s a computer? Just ask Cortana.
[VIDEO] A few weeks ago, Apple put out this iPad Pro commercial, notably asking the question, “What’s a Computer?”
Microsoft has an answer, a new commercial (shown in the main post) that reminds me of the “I’m a Mac. And I’m a PC” ads of a decade ago, though this time with the roles reversed.
Intel expects USB-C could help kill the 3.5mm audio jack
Stephen Shankland, writing for CNET:
At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco on Tuesday, Intel architects Brad Saunders and Rahman Ismail sketched out a coming USB audio standard that could help push the 3.5mm jack aside. The new specification, due this quarter, adds features to ensure a USB headphone doesn’t drain too much battery power and defines how buttons for pausing music or lowering volume work.
This is an interesting fork in the road for the 3.5mm audio jack. One rumored path is the elimination of the 3.5mm jack from the upcoming iPhone 7, in combination with a potential lightning to 3.5mm headset adapter for legacy headsets.
This UDB-C push would be another path, another adapter for legacy headsets.
Seems to me, all roads lead to wireless headphones as the future. The short term is the replacement cycle, similar to what we went through with the elimination of the floppy drive, the CD/DVD drive, and the changeover to the lightning cable. Sturm und drang, followed by acceptance.