Apple

Tim Cook Telegraph interview

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A few highlights from yesterday’s Tim Cook Telegraph interview. Some good little nuggets there.

Apple ranked first as fastest and most most efficient online retailer

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Apple Insider:

In its first ever quarterly study, customer service analytics firm StellaService ranked Apple as the fastest and most most efficient online retailer in terms of shipments for the fourth quarter of 2014, taking an average of 2.5 days to send out orders.

The lawsuits keep on coming

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SmartFlash LLC follows their recent court victory with a follow-on lawsuit to include more recent devices. And Ericsson AB announced their own lawsuit against Apple, a bit of hardball following a failed licensing deal.

Apple ordered to pay $533 million in patent dispute

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Bloomberg Business:

Apple Inc. was told to pay $532.9 million after a federal jury said the company’s iTunes software used a Texas company’s patented inventions without permission.

This one’s not over.

Apple to overhaul Genius bar, appointment process

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Mark Gurman, writing for 9to5mac:

This Concierge program, spearheaded by Retail Senior Vice President Angela Ahrendts, moves away from the classic appointment model. Instead, a customer describes the issue to an Apple Store employee, who inputs the issue into an updated iPad application. Using a special algorithm, the application provides the customer a wait time based on issue priorities.

Apple’s Oscar ad was worth the wait

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Apple got permission from Martin Scorsese to use excerpts from his NYU Tisch School of the Arts commencement speech, given last year, in a new “Make a film with iPad” ad they ran during the Oscars broadcast.

Pitch perfect ad. Watch the video below.

Apple to invest $1.9 billion to open two European, renewable energy data centers

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From Apple’s press release:

Apple® today announced a €1.7 billion plan to build and operate two data centres in Europe, each powered by 100 percent renewable energy. The facilities, located in County Galway, Ireland, and Denmark’s central Jutland, will power Apple’s online services including the iTunes Store®, App Store℠, iMessage®, Maps and Siri® for customers across Europe.

Not only is it running on 100% renewable energy, but the Danish data center is doing something positive with the extra heat their equipment generates.

Apple’s new peers

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M.G. Siegler makes the case that Apple building a car is inevitable, that cars are in Apple’s DNA

Protecting your files from a thief

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Spoiler alert, best bet is to make a reliable backup of your Mac, enable FileVault encryption, use a password everywhere you can and use a different password at every opportunity. This is worth reading.

The Chronicle shares its 1998 audio interview with Steve Jobs

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1998 was still a low point for Apple. Steve Jobs had just returned, had some new plans in place, but the triumphant arc of new products that would once again change the world had not yet begun.

The Chronicle of Higher Education sent two reporters, one a seasoned reporter and one fresh out of college, to a conference for college computing administrators to grab some time with Steve Jobs. Follow the link to read about the interview and listen to the whole thing.

Apple’s electric car team

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Jordan Kahn of 9to5mac did a great job pulling together the list of Apple’s recent auto-related hires, along with some background for each one.