Apple

Neil Cybart, laying out Apple’s pre-2018 “pull” strategy:

One way of conceptualizing this product strategy is to think of every major Apple product category being attached to a rope. The order in which these products were attached to the rope was determined by the degree to which technology was made more personal via new workflows and processes for getting work done. Accordingly, Apple Watch and iPhone were located on the end of the rope held by Apple management. Meanwhile, Mac desktops were located at the other end of the rope while iPads and Mac portables were somewhere in the middle.

As Apple management pulled on the rope, the Apple Watch and iPhone received much of the attention while the Mac increasingly resembled dead weight.

And:

The quicker Apple pulled on the rope, the more chaotic the end of the rope moved.

But that seems to be changing:

Over the past two years, we received clues that a major change was beginning to take hold in Apple’s product strategy. This change was on display during this year’s WWDC.

And:

Apple no longer appears to be relying so much on a pull system when it comes to advancing its product line. Instead, a push system is being utilized, and every major product category is being pushed forward simultaneously. The change was designed to reduce the amount of chaos found at the end of the “rope” that Apple was pulling. Accordingly, the primary benefactors arising from this new strategy are the iPad and Mac. This explains why this year’s WWDC announcements felt more overwhelming than those of previous years. Apple was able to move its entire product category forward at the same time.

Not sure I agree with the “push vs pull” label, but I do agree with the basic point. There does appear to be an overall change in Apple’s strategy, much more of a focus on the health of the overall ecosystem, rather than a focus on the new hotness, with older products gathering dust.

To me (as I’ve found myself saying again and again lately), Apple is firing on all cylinders. Great detailed read.

Apple:

Apple today announced the completion of a major expansion of its Apple authorized service network. With nearly 1,000 Best Buy stores across the US now providing expert service and repairs for Apple products, customers have even easier and more convenient access to safe and reliable repairs.

And:

By expanding to every Best Buy store across the US, customers in cities including Yuma, Arizona; Sioux City, Iowa; Twin Falls, Idaho; Casper, Wyoming and Bismarck, North Dakota will have more convenient access to Apple repairs. Plus, Best Buy’s Geek Squad has nearly 7,600 newly Apple-certified technicians ready to make same-day iPhone repairs or to service other Apple products.

It just got a lot easier to find a place to get your gear serviced, in warranty, in an Apple blessed way.

Interesting that Apple specifically called out those cities. If you look up Yuma, Arizona on your map, for example, you’ll see how incredibly far you have to go to get to an Apple Store (All the way to San Diego to the west, or to Mesa to the northeast). This is a terrific move, extending Apple’s reach, a win for many of Apple’s remoter customers.

This is an easy read with lots of interesting detail on Photos and non-destructive editing. Worth your time, and from an excellent source.

From the bio at the end of the article:

Nik Bhatt, formerly Senior Director of Engineering at Apple, led the Aperture and iPhoto engineering teams for several years. Afterward, he led imaging teams for Apple’s photo applications, including the teams responsible for Core Image and Apple’s RAW Camera library. He is now the developer of RAW Power, an advanced photo editing app for Mac and iOS.

Read the article.

World of difference. Apple Maps, improving steadily.

https://twitter.com/rvdsteege/status/1139264604918485005

Click the headline link, don’t look away or you’ll miss it. Don’t ever remember Apple honoring a sports franchise like this. I kind of love it.

Click the link, click the colors, read the descriptions. Well done.

Zac Hall, 9to5Mac:

Apple upgraded CarPlay in iOS 12 with support for third-party navigation apps including Google Maps and Waze, allowing drivers to use alternatives to Apple Maps for the first time. CarPlay has an even bigger update in iOS 13 with the introduction of Dashboard, new apps, and updates to existing apps.

This is a pretty solid rethinking of the CarPlay interface. Yet another example of Apple firing on all cylinders.

Digiday:

Headphones are a fact of life inside open plan offices, but Airpods have quickly become a staple of life at ad agency life, with staffers walking around all day with the signature little pods in their ears.

And:

“I know they’re not listening to music, or anything, but it’s still disconcerting to see them with something in their ears while we’re all discussing something,” said one agency CEO, who said he once had a meeting with someone wearing Airpods. “It’s like, ‘what?’”

Fascinating piece. I’ve had plenty of conversations with people with AirPods in my own ears, and/or with AirPods in theirs. One key difference between AirPods and Beats Powerbeats Pro is the ability to hear background noise. The Powerbeats Pro are designed to wedge tightly into the ear canal, making conversation more difficult, at least to me, than with AirPods in my ears.

And the almost viral spread of AirPods means more people keeping them in their ears on a regular basis.

“Airpods are a totally different phenomenon,” said Michelle Edelman, Petermayer evp and chief strategy officer. “The product is honestly good, but wearing them 24/7 is going to mess with the notion of when you can and can’t disturb someone. So it’ll change social norms if people just start to leave them in during meetings.”

And:

“Just yesterday, I was walking on the street listening to a partner review some important data with me and a woman stopped me to ask for directions as she didn’t see my Airpods,” she said. “I had to do that thing where I listened to two people talk to me at once for about a minute before telling both of them I didn’t hear what either of them said.”

Or it could be the woman didn’t see AirPods as a sign that you were necessarily unavailable for listening.

Very interesting article.

James Vincent, The Verge:

Shazam can be an incredibly useful app, able to identify songs and find lyrics for them just by listening to the audio. But one big annoyance has been the software’s inability to ‘hear’ music playing through a device’s headphones. Instead, users have to play the song through internal speakers or find a way to direct the sound to their phone or tablet’s microphone.

Not any more. A new feature called Pop-up Shazam in the latest Android version of the app works with audio played through headphones with Shazam working in the background.

As soon as I read this I thought, cool, been waiting for this. But try as I might, could not get this to work in iOS.

If you are listening to the Music app via headphones in iOS, you can fire up Shazam or ask Siri what’s playing. Works perfectly. But if you are watching YouTube via headphones, or perhaps Netflix, Hulu, etc., there does not appear to be a way for Siri or Shazam to hear what you’re hearing.

Not a big deal, but I thought it was interesting that this feature came to Android, given that Apple owns Shazam.

If you do know of a way to Shazam music played through headphones, please reply to this tweet.

The kicker? It’s a swimming record.

AirPods are everywhere.