Business

On Apple, Steve Jobs, and the loss of simplicity

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Ken Segall knew Steve Jobs well. Segall was a former TBWA\Chiat\Day creative director, he worked on a long range of advertising projects for both Apple and NeXT, and he was and is a fierce advocate for simplicity.

He did an interview for The Guardian, weighing in with his thoughts on simplicity.

Inside Apple and Tim Cook’s operational brilliance

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This back and forth between Motley Fool analysts Dylan Lewis and Evan Niu digs into the steps it takes to get an iPhone from the factory to your hand. A terrific read (or listen, if you prefer).

Police are filing warrants for Android’s vast store of location data

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The Verge:

None of the witnesses saw Graham’s face in February, and Graham himself wasn’t talking. He was physically similar to the man who held up the bank in February — but it was only enough to keep the case going, not enough to make it stick.

So investigators tried a new trick: they called Google. In an affidavit filed on February 8th, nearly a year after the initial robbery, the FBI requested location data pulled from Graham’s Samsung Galaxy S5.

Remind you of a certain Police song?

A friendly walk through Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Report

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Mary Meeker is a well respected venture capital analyst. Each year, she releases a report revealing a series of important internet trends, slices through vast troves of data. The post gives a link to the original presentation as well as a link to a friendly walkthrough of some of the more important slides.

When should Apple introduce its innovations?

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This is just one part of a long series of Apple analyses John Kirk is writing for Tech.pinions. The series is great, but this one is just chock full of goodies, a fun read. Take a minute to dig in, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Driving a 5K Apple display

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WWDC brings with it the prospect of a MacBook Pro refresh (likely) as well as a 5K external display refresh (less likely, but possible). Rene Ritchie explores the tree of possibilities for driving a 5K display.

The lightning headphone adapter

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Rumors are circulating that Apple’s next-generation iPhone will drop the 3.5-millimeter headphone jack, with new iPhone headsets relying on the lightning port or Bluetooth instead.

Whether or not this is true, there is another report of a Chinese accessory maker advertising a series of Lightning-to-headphone adapters with separate volume controls.

Apple Car, Tesla, and the charging station problem

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According to this Reuters article, Apple is talking with charging station companies:

Apple is now asking charging station companies about their underlying technology, one person with knowledge of the matter said. The talks, which have not been reported, do not concern charging for electric cars of Apple employees, a service the company already provides. They indicate that Apple is focused on a car, the person added.

If Apple is building a car, of course they’re going to be involved in the rollout of charging stations. And that’s where things become problematic.

Apple’s McDonald’s solution for India

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Tim Culpan, writing for Bloomberg, homes in on India’s desire that Apple build all devices sold in India in India, and proposes and McDonald’s franchise approach as a possible compromise. Very interesting.

Apple fails to get India’s 30% local sourcing waiver, but don’t count them out

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Live Mint:

“There is nothing to show that Apple’s technology is cutting edge. DIPP has been asked to come out with a clear-cut guideline defining ‘cutting edge’ and ‘state-of-the-art’ technology for which such a waiver can be given. There are other companies also in the queue. It could create controversy if we waived the norms for only one without stated guidelines,” the official cited above said.

A second government official said the fact that Apple did not have a manufacturing facility in India went against it. This person also spoke on condition of anonymity.

This isn’t over.

Microsoft drops consumer smartphone business

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From the Microsoft press release announcing this “streamlining”:

Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday announced plans to streamline the company’s smartphone hardware business, which will impact up to 1,850 jobs.

Oy.

Tim Cook jams as Apple releases Chinese music-themed update to GarageBand

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Quoted in Apple’s press release is JJ Lin, a Singaporean singer and songwriter:

“As a musician I’m always looking for ways to take my music in new directions and GarageBand has been such a great tool for me to experiment and add new elements to my songs on-the-go,” said award-winning music artist JJ Lin. “I love how the latest update to GarageBand adds traditional Chinese instruments along with brand new loops so I can play around with mixing traditional and modern sounds to create completely new styles.”

Lin is based in Taiwan. You can see him in action, GarageBand jamming with Tim Cook in the video embedded in the main post.

Intel culture just ate 12,000 jobs

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Jean-Louis Gassée, writing for Monday Note, on Intel finally throwing in the towel on their smartphone chip business.