The seamy underbelly of waiting in line for the new iPhones in NYC

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[VIDEO] Casey Neistat is a long time self-professed Apple nerd and documentary filmmaker. His latest effort involves the cultural change in the lines of people waiting overnight for new Apple product, a sea change from the early days of Apple fanatics, to the current lineups populated (at least in the case of these Manhattan Apple Stores) by people trying to make a buck.

At first blush, this was a little hard to take. It seemed like victimization, pure and simple. But then I read this piece by Dave Aiello.

I think what’s important to note about this film is that the issue is not Apple’s worldwide product release method at all. At most, the resale activity Neistat depicts represents a side-effect of the failure of the Chinese state regulatory agencies to approve the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in a timely manner. These regulatory agencies include agencies like the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and collectively function as the equivalent of our Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and perhaps our Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

I would argue that, in an effort to show that they control the Chinese smartphone market and Apple does not, these agencies delayed approval of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus beyond Apple’s planned worldwide release date. By doing so, they created a situation where a graymarket of epic proportions could redevelop overnight. This graymarket may now be exploited in the fashion described in the film.

The only thing I’m really sorry about with respect to this film is that the filmmaker chose to highlight the Chinese people standing in line in New York as if they’re victims being exploited by criminals from China who are referred to as “Chinese mafia”. (Some people also call use of the term “Chinese mafia” racist.) I imagine that the people who waited in line made enough of a profit on resale of the iPhones they purchased to justify their time standing in line.

In this case, one person’s criminal is another person’s street-level entrepreneur.

Watch the video, embedded below. Some good food for thought. [via Seth Weintraub of 9to5mac]

First weekend iPhone sales top 10 Million, set new record

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From the Apple Press Release:

Apple® today announced it has sold over 10 million new iPhone® 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models, a new record, just three days after the launch on September 19. iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are available in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the UK and will be available in more than 20 additional countries on September 26. The new iPhones will be available in 115 countries by the end of the year.

An astonishing number.

The thriving Chinese iPhone 6 black market

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The research agency Counterpoint Research has estimated that as many as 5 million units may be smuggled into China before it is possible for consumers to purchase officially from Apple.

Even if Chinese approval is close, the black market won’t wait for it. Fascinating.

iOS 8 and the accidental selfie

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TechCrunch:

With both videos and voice memos, iMessage lets you review the content before sending it. You can play it back and then choose to delete or send it off into the world for other peoples’ viewing and judging pleasure.

With still pictures, however, the photo is automatically sent the second your finger releases the camera button.

iOS 8 needs an interface tweak.

On adopting the big screen of the iPhone 6 Plus

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Quartz:

Call it the Church of Apple. Steve Jobs once called big phones Hummers (like the cars) and said that no-one was going to buy them. (He was sitting next to the current CEO, Tim Cook, when he said that.) Only a year after the iPhone 4S, the iPhone 5 was released with a 4-inch display and it sold like hotcakes. The Apple fans bought it and loved it. And the same thing is happening again. So what gives?

To me, it’s about acclimation. The move from the iPhone 4 to the iPhone 5 form factor was an easy adjustment. The iPhone 5 was lighter and longer, but still easy to use with one hand. The move from the iPhone 5 to the iPhone 6 is a bit more of a leap, and the move to the iPhone 6 Plus form factor is truly dramatic, challenging our preconceived notions about the aesthetics of phone size.

What’s in a can of Coke?

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How do you make a can of Coke?

The Vons grocery store two miles from my home in Los Angeles, California sells 12 cans of Coca-Cola for $6.59 — 54 cents each. The tool chain that created this simple product is incomprehensibly complex.

Each can originated in a small town of 4,000 people on the Murray River in Western Australia called Pinjarra. Pinjarra is the site of the world’s largest bauxite mine. Bauxite is surface mined — basically scraped and dug from the top of the ground. The bauxite is crushed and washed with hot sodium hydroxide, which separates it into aluminum hydroxide and waste material called red mud. The aluminum hydroxide is cooled, then heated to over a thousand degrees celsius in a kiln, where it becomes aluminum oxide, or alumina. The alumina is dissolved in a molten substance called cryolite, a rare mineral first discovered in Greenland, and turned into pure aluminum using electricity in a process called electrolysis. The pure aluminum sinks to the bottom of the molten cryolite, is drained off and placed in a mold. It cools into the shape of a long cylindrical bar. The bar is transported west again, to the Port of Bunbury, and loaded onto a container ship bound for — in the case of Coke for sale in Los Angeles — Long Beach.

And that’s just the beginning. Great read.

iPhone 6 and 6 Plus teardowns

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[VIDEO] Per tradition, every major Apple product release is followed quickly by a teardown video from iFixit. I love taking things apart and fixing them myself and I am very happy with the improvements Apple has made to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus construction, making it much easier to replace the display and battery.

As you watch the video, note the use of the iSclack tool, a kind of pliers with a pair of facing suction cups designed to grab onto the front and back of the iPhone. Once you’ve removed the iPhone screws, you place the ISClack, press on the suction cups, squeeze the ISClack handles, the suction cups separate, and the phone gently opens. Nice design there.

Early data suggests iPhone 6 outselling 6 Plus by a significant margin

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As of 4 PM Pacific, the iPhone 6 accounts for about 2.45% of the devices MixPanel is seeing in use. The iPhone 6 Plus, meanwhile, makes up just 0.31%. Everything else (that is, every previous generation of iPhone MixPanel still sees in the wild) makes up the other 97.24%.

Why is this? Here’s one take.

Tour of third party iOS 8 keyboards

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iOS 8 allows you to select a third party keyboard to replace Apple’s built-in keyboard. The linked article takes a look at three of these, SwiftKey, Swype, and Fleksy, comparing them to the default iOS 8 keyboard.

Fighting gravity

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[VIDEO] Two dancers rappel a short distance down the side of Oakland’s City Hall, then do an incredible gravity-defying dance on the side of the building.

Huge lines for new iPhones at European, US Apple Stores

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Amazing that this still happens after all these years.

At Apple’s store on Fifth Avenue in New York, police officers put up barricades as the line stretched more than 10 blocks and the crowd cheered continuously for the 15 minutes before the phones officially went on sale.

Product Loyalty? Brilliant marketing? Whatever the cause, this is something that Microsoft and Samsung can only dream of.

Siri, name that tune

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One of my favorite additions that came with iOS 8 is Siri’s ability to pick out a tune. This is, presumably, a direct result of Apple’s new deal with Shazam.

To try it, press and hold the home button and say “Name that tune”. Siri will listen and will attempt to name the song you have playing. If the song is available in the iTunes Store, Siri will name the song and put up a “buy” button.

Gruber’s response to the “Don’t buy the new iPhones” lock-in article

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Joshua Brustein wrote an inflammatory piece for Businessweek, called Hey, Android Users, Don’t Buy the New iPhones. In a nutshell, the basic premise is this: Although the new iPhones are the best phones on the market and superior to the larger screen Android devices they are replacing, it’s just too hard to switch ecosystems, so stick with Android.

I struggled with a reply to this. And then I read John Gruber’s response on Daring Fireball. Spot on. Go read it.

Brilliant iPhone 6 and 6 Plus camera review, on location from Iceland

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[VIDEO] Professional photographer Austin Mann teamed up with The Verge to field test the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus cameras in the Icelandic countryside. They took along an iPhone 5s for a side-by-side comparison. Brilliant work.

There’s a lot to enjoy here. For starters, Mann really pushes the cameras to the limit with some extreme low-light shooting. Good to know the iPhone 6 series cameras can handle such low light, and it does help showcase the difference between the 5s and 6 series cameras.

My favorite shot was the Focus Pixels test, towards the bottom of the page.

Focus Pixels are all about autofocus. They enable phase-detect focusing on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, which makes switching subjects in your frame both smooth and fast. It works well in stills, helping you always keep your subjects in focus, but it’s most useful when you’re shooting video.

Words don’t do this justice. Watch the video.

Apple’s iOS 8 super-site

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iOS 8 is an incredibly rich upgrade. Stepping through these pages will give you a sense of the major new capabilities so you can take advantage of them.

iOS 8 upgrade: Choosing the right iCloud Drive option

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When you upgrade to iOS 8, most of the options are ones you’ve seen with past upgrades. But one option, asking if you’d like to upgrade to iCloud Drive, is new, and the choice you make here matters.

Ars Technica’s massive iOS 8 review

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This is a beast of a review, lots to digest.

As you make your way through the various reviews, keep in mind that the best of iOS 8 is yet to come. As developers wrap their heads around what’s possible, clever bits of code that leverage your iOS experience will start to emerge. That’s when the true value of iOS 8 will become apparent.

New location options in iOS 8

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In a nutshell, you now have the ability to restrict an app from accessing your location data while running in the background.

Bryan Cranston’s one man show about baseball

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[VIDEO] Baseball fan? Last night, something very rare happened. Two teams in the same neck of the woods, the Washington Nationals and the Baltimore Orioles, clinched their respective divisions on the very same night. Huge parties, much fun for the fans.

To honor this achievement, I present Bryan Cranston’s magnificent one-man Broadway show, his homage to post-season baseball.

Tim Cook on Charlie Rose, part two

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[VIDEO] Last week, Tim Cook did a two hour interview with Charlie Rose. The editors split the interview into two halves, running part one last Friday evening (here’s a link, if you missed it). Part two is embedded below. Fantastic interview. I found it riveting.

How much will an iPhone 6 cost you?

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Wallet Hub put together a cell phone contract calculator, then used that calculator to analyze the cost of owning an iPhone 6 on various carriers, both with an without a contract.

If you find the numbers a little hard to understand, this article by CBS Money Watch’s Kathy Kristof does a nice job of explaining the implications.

Arlington County, Virginia to provide MacBook Air laptops to all students

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Arlington County is one of the largest counties in Virginia in terms of population. In a nice win for Apple, the school board announced that every single student in the county will be receiving a brand new MacBook Air. The rollout will start this year, with laptops provided to all 9th graders.

As it turns out, 9th grade is when the Computer Science track starts in Arlington, a good year to make sure that every student has equal access to the technology required to learn programming. The current curriculum is based on older Windows machines.

I strongly prefer Android, so why did I pre-order an iPhone?

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Nick Pierno is a longtime Android user. What would make him even consider switching?

It just kinda bums me out how mediocre all my photos and videos are. Not to mention all the missed opportunities from slow autofocus, bad low light sensing, etc. I know, I know.. woe is me. But if I can, I’d like to look back on the next 5 years with a bit more fidelity.

I’ve also been stricken with a bit of a bum rap this past year. I have an illness that has kept me stuck at home and in beds/bathrooms/waiting rooms/etc. a lot more than usual. This results in increased phone use, and of course, battery drain. Well… turns out the Nexus 5, despite being a truly outstanding phone, isn’t a champion of endurance.

There’s a lot more to this piece. Interesting to see how an Android user views the iPhone. One thing that is quite clear is that the move to a larger screen has opened up the potential audience for Apple.

Actual size of iPhone 6, 6 Plus versus iPhone 5

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Ever since the announcement, I’ve been wrestling with which new iPhone to buy. I’m at the end of my existing contract, and I’ve already got the funds set aside. The question is purely one of size. I dug through Apple’s site, trying to find an image comparing the iPhone 5 to the newer models.

I ended up rolling my own, using images from Apple’s site. Print and cut and you’ll have something you can use to see if your favorite model fits in your pocket.

Microsoft announces $2.5 billion Minecraft purchase

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From the Microsoft press release:

Available across multiple platforms, “Minecraft” is one of the most popular video games in history, with more than 100 million downloads, on PC alone, by players since its launch in 2009. “Minecraft” is one of the top PC games of all time, the most popular online game on Xbox, and the top paid app for iOS and Android in the US. The “Minecraft” community is among the most active and passionate in the industry, with more than 2 billion hours played on Xbox 360 alone in the past two years. Minecraft fans are loyal, with nearly 90 percent of paid customers on the PC having signed in within the past 12 months.