I can definitely relate.
My wife and I have a Windows laptop in our kitchen. First we were asked politely if we were interested in upgrading to Windows 10. Then we were reminded repeatedly. And, ultimately, we woke up one morning to see our machine taking matters into its own hands, whistling silently, while it upgraded us to what it knew we really needed.
[VIDEO] Lauren Goode, writing (and filming) for The Verge, walks you through the differences between Siri and Alexa, Alexa being the voice of the Amazon ecosystem, most notably found on the Amazon Echo.
Watch the video embedded in the main post to get a sense of Alexa in action. Nice side-by-side effect there, Lauren.
The review makes me want one, but it also makes me long for an update to the retina MacBook Pro.
Two videos, taken by truck drivers as they make their way around the campus.
Time:
Photography company Getty Images is accusing Google of scraping images from third party websites and encouraging piracy, adding a new wrinkle to the Mountain View, Calif.’s ongoing legal battles in Europe.
On this date in 2003, Steve Jobs rolled out the iTunes Music Store. This is a good take on how it evolved over the years.
AMC adds yet another unbundling Apple TV app. My take on what’s coming as all this unfolds and things start to heat up.
There are currently no Apple Stores in India, so this is an important step.
Bloomberg:
Time Warner Inc.’s Turner division will introduce its first online-only channel, allowing film buffs to watch classic movies without a traditional TV subscription.
Will there be an Apple TV app?
If you make your way through iFixit’s Retina MacBook 2016 teardown, you’ll see some tamper evident screws holding the hinge to the aluminum body. Looks like Loctite, not tamper-proofing.
Interesting.
Intel is battling to move from 3.5mm headphone jacks to pure digital audio, fed through USB Type-C. Lots of technical detail in the article, a few of my own thoughts on this.
Nintendo sent out a press release jam packed with anticipation-causing tidbits.
Jason Snell digs into the transcript of yesterday’s earnings call:
If I had to describe Tim Cook’s attitude during the call, it would be “optimistic.” But only because he referred to his optimism eight different times over the span of an hour. (Maestri added another three on his own.) Then again, when your company just broke a 13-year streak of year-over-year revenue growth, expressing your optimism about the future is probably a smart move.
Growth is the currency of a small company and the curse of a large one.
Take a look at Apple’s revenue curve since 2008. I think you’ll agree.
Dropbox announces Project Infinite. Their attempt to capture a huge chunk of the cloud business. A fascinating concept, well executed, but their marketing could use some tuning, a bit of a slight towards Apple, OS X, and iOS.
Riveting account of the disaster, with a first person accounting from one of the very few people who was there and lived to tell the tale.
On cable companies and data caps, charges seemingly intended for cord cutters.
Jean-Louis Gassée, writing for Monday Note, on the hackability of your car and the increasing vulnerability that comes with some recent rule changes.
Steam inks deal with Lionsgate to bring film to their game heavy site. Will they add some custom content to compete with Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc.?
Is this a course correction? A basic change of strategy? We’ll likely learn more this afternoon.
The quarterly earnings call was originally scheduled for yesterday afternoon, but pushed to today, as Apple executives and employees will be attending the Bill Campbell memorial service.
If you are a regular Loop reader, this might be old hat to you. But consider passing the link along to folks you know who might find this useful.
Kevin McLaughlin, writing for CRN:
Apple is buying and deploying an increasing amount of IBM technology for internal use, in a sign of how the vendors’ mobile enterprise partnership is spreading to new areas, sources familiar with the matter told CRN this week.
Apple is using IBM software and hardware in its retail platform and in its corporate data centers, according to the sources.
Read the original headline and my comments to that.
ESPN:
Documents laying out some of the original “Laws of Base Ball” sold for $3.26 million early Sunday morning, setting a new record for the highest-priced baseball document.
A spokesman from SCP Auctions told ESPN that the buyer wished to remain anonymous.
It was not me.
This is a well written, understandable walk through the evolution and current state of color and Apple devices. Deep, but not too deep. A great read.
[VIDEO] In this interview, Billy talks about technique and references the video embedded in the main post. Prince was a master of technique. Take a listen. Prince is in complete control. This is not about speed, this is about breathing life into his guitar, making it an extension of his Princely self.
Daisuke Wakabayashi, writing for The Wall Street Journal:
As the Watch marks its first anniversary on Sunday — two days before Apple’s quarterly earnings announcement — the product’s fate is critical to the company. It is Apple’s first all-new product since the iPad and a test of its ability to innovate under Chief Executive Tim Cook, when sales of iPhones are slowing.
So far, the numbers appear solid. Apple doesn’t disclose sales, but analysts estimate about 12 million Watches were sold in year one. At an estimated average price of $500, that is a $6 billion business — three times the annual revenue of activity tracker Fitbit Inc.
A remarkable achievement. I use mine every day…
With the potential release of a second generation of Apple Watch and the requirement that Apple Watch apps be able to run independent of their paired iPhone overlords, this is an interesting time for Apple Watch game developers. New opportunities are definitely on the horizon.
Ben Thompson, writing for Stratechery:
I do believe that Apple’s products — their devices anyways — are superior, particularly if you value the finer details of industrial design, build quality, and little UI details like scrolling and responsiveness that seem so simple but are so hard to get right. And, frankly, it’s not surprising that Apple is good at this stuff for the exact reasons laid out above: everything about the company is designed to produce integrated devices that don’t sacrifice perfection for the sake of modularity.
But…
The problem is that everything that goes into creating these jewel-like devices works against being good at services.
As you make your way through the post, ask yourself whether Apple is an integrated product company or a services company. Interesting post.
Siri and Liam, together for Earth Day. Can it last?