Field Notes: Two Rivers Edition

I’ve been using Field Notes memo books for years. I have one sitting beside me right now and another in my computer bag, ready to go.

Thoughts on Apple Watch

About 24 hours ago I was sitting in a room with Apple executives with an Apple Watch on my wrist, flipping through the different screens and options. I was immediately more impressed with the watch than I was when the device was first introduced in September 2014. […]

A new level of respect for Apple

Like most people that attended Apple’s event on Monday, I was waiting for news of the Apple Watch, but I was distracted early on by another, incredibly important announcement: ResearchKit.

ResearchKit

“iOS apps already help millions of customers track and improve their health. With hundreds of millions of iPhones in use around the world, we saw an opportunity for Apple to have an even greater impact by empowering people to participate in and contribute to medical research,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s senior vice president of Operations. “ResearchKit gives the scientific community access to a diverse, global population and more ways to collect data than ever before.”

I didn’t see this one coming, but I’m really glad Tim and company decided to do it.

Apple’s new MacBook

“Apple has reinvented the notebook with the new MacBook, and at just two pounds and 13.1 mm, it’s the thinnest and lightest Mac ever,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Every component of the MacBook reveals a new innovation. From its fanless design, ultra-thin Retina display and full-size keyboard that’s 34 percent thinner, to its all-new Force Touch trackpad, versatile USB-C port and breakthrough terraced battery design, the new MacBook is the future of the notebook.”

So Apple has the MacBook Air, MacBook, and MacBook Pro lines again. I spent some time with the new MacBook today and it is stunning. I want that gold one.

Apple Watch available April 24

“Apple Watch begins a new chapter in the way we relate to technology and we think our customers are going to love it,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We can’t wait for people to start wearing Apple Watch to easily access information that matters, to interact with the world, and to live a better day by being more aware of their daily activity than ever before.”

It was a great keynote and a very interesting product.

HelloTalk: Learn a new language on your iPhone [Sponsor]

Finally, learning and practicing a new language is easier and more intuitive than ever before. Introducing HelloTalk, the language app where your teachers are native language speakers from around the world. You just pick the language you want to learn—there are over 100 from which to select—and almost instantaneously you’ll be in touch with native speakers of that language … and you’ll start learning and practicing immediately.

HelloTalk isn’t a course you strictly follow; rather, you learn and practice at your pace and in the manner that best meets the way you learn. Practice foreign languages with people around the world. Simultaneously speak and type the language you’re learning. Record your voice before speaking to your HelloTalk friends and compare your recording to standard pronunciations. Change your friends’ audio messages to text for better understanding, and receive help to improve your grammar. Easily translate whenever you don’t understand, and so much more.

With HelloTalk, you’ll discover learning a new language is fun … and fast. Download your copy for iPhone or Android today.

24 Hour Project street photography

A street photography project to document world’s humanity in one single day. World wide participants will share their city stories through one photo per hour during 24 hours.

Sounds great.

Chasing the Aurora

In February 2015, I traveled far north to Norway to hunt down and photograph the Northern Lights, one of the most mesmerizing natural phenomena of this planet.

The Northern Lights are amazing.

Why China loves Apple best

Apple received the highest score for loyalty of any brand cited across all categories. What explains Apple’s unrivaled loyalty in China? Yes, the products are attractive. Yes, the price point is high enough that the iPhone is a status symbol that is more accessible than a diamond-studded watch or flashy sports car.

Very interesting article.

AltConf call for speakers

AltConf is a free, community-driven and supported event, held in downtown San Francisco alongside Apple’s WWDC. We’re currently planning the 2015 conference, and we’ve got some very exciting plans in the works that we’re hoping that we can announce very soon.

Mike and Judy do a tremendous job with AltConf. If you’re interested in speaking or wish to support the conference, be sure to get in touch with them.

Apple asks for injunction against Samsung

Samsung lawyer Kathleen Sullivan of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP said the South Korean company had all but stopped using the patents, so no injunction was needed.

Wait, I thought Samsung said it didn’t infringe on Apple’s patents. Now they’re saying they did infringe, but they sort of stopped. This company is crazypants crazy.

Metallica to reissue early cassette on Record Store Day

The seven-track demo (Metallica’s second overall) dropped during the summer of 1982, when the band members themselves (which then included Dave Mustaine on guitar in the pre-Kirk Hammett days) sent the copies out to friends and the underground metal cognoscenti.

Yeah, I’ll be picking this one up.

Safari vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attack

Apple has promised to distribute a client-side patch for the issue on both iOS and OS X by next week, while the researchers who discovered the flaw — from INRIA, IMDEA, and Microsoft Research — have been working to notify hosts who still serve export ciphers.

Led Zeppelin concert film coming to theaters

Here’s some news from the Zeppelin camp: A film offering a bevy of Led Zeppelin live footage is coming to a movie theater near you. The movie, appropriately called Led Zeppelin, will feature Zeppelin performing several concerts that happened throughout their career and play in more than 300 U.S. cinemas March 30.

This is going to be a must-see film. I hope they make it available on iTunes because I’ll be buying it.

Samsung just pisses me off

Samsung ditched almost all of its hardware differentiation to go all in on iPhone 6-style design — though layering in, iPhone 4-like, with glass on both sides.

Does this company have no shame? Can they not come up with anything on their own? Pathetic.

Universal Audio releases UAD v8.0

I’ve been waiting for this version since I saw it at NAMM in January. The new software includes Apollo Expanded featuring Console 2.0 Software; Sound Machine Wood Works Plug-In; Distortion Essentials Plug-In Bundle; Friedman Amplifiers Plug-In Collection; and (Mac) Support for OS X Yosemite. This is a great update.

Fuck off Kanye

Kayne talking to Oxford students:

“I love Steve Jobs, he’s my favourite person, but there’s one thing that disappoints me. When Steve passed he didn’t give the ideas up. That’s kinda selfish. You know that Elon’s like ‘yeah, take these ideas’. Maybe there are companies outside of Apple that could work on them and push humanity forward. Maybe the stock brokers won’t like that, the stock holders wouldn’t like that idea, but ideas are free and you can’t be selfish with them.”

What a moron.

Blogo: Blogging app for the Mac

This is a really nice looking app. I just downloaded the trial and it works great too—if there’s one thing I would add, it would be access to custom fields in WordPress. Otherwise, I really like it.

What it’s like giving a presentation to Steve Jobs

Steve was wicked smart. I was always amazed at how sharp he was and how quickly he could focus on what was important. I don’t know ANYONE that even comes close to how good he was at being able to do that.

Don’t just read the story, read the comments too. I miss Steve.

CSS Clocks

I don’t know why I found this so cool, but I did. Working CSS Clocks.

loser.com

It is absolutely priceless where loser.com goes.

The Workflow Video Field Guide

The Workflow Video Field Guide starts with a few, easy workflows and builds upon them over the course of an hour to turn you into a Workflow pro. By the time you get to the end, you’ll be able to roll your own workflows and change the way you work on your iPhone and iPad.

I always like David Sparks’ work.

Shot on iPhone 6

People take incredible photos and videos on iPhone 6 every day. And here are some of our favorites. Explore the gallery, learn a few tips, and see what’s possible with the world’s most popular camera.

A new page from Apple highlighting some great shots taken with the iPhone 6. These are quite impressive.

Kidpost

This is a new project from the very talented Khoi Vinh. I think this is such a great idea and will make things much easier for a lot of people. You can get a deal after the 30-day trial by using code LOOP.