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ACSI:

Customer satisfaction with computing devices continues to slide but desktop computers do better than laptops and tablets, according to a new report from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). The annual measure of personal computers falls 1.3 percent to an ACSI score of 78 (on a 0-100 point scale). Laptops deteriorate the most (-4% to 76), while tablets dip slightly (-1% to 80), but desktops gain 3 percent to take the lead at 81.

Even though Apple “dropped 3% to 84” it continues to “maintain a sizable lead over its major competitors”. It would be interesting to understand the reasons for the overall increased in desktop PC satisfaction. Perhaps people who have switched to laptops and tablets have discovered they are not as powerful as they need or want.

AnandTech:

Some basic performance data and battery life, which include browser benchmarks, game-type benchmarks, and our standard web browsing battery life test. There’s definitely a lot more to talk about for this phone, but this should give an idea of what to expect in the full review.

AnandTech’s prelim results are interesting. I look forward to their full detailed review.

BusinessWeek:

Tim Cook was jubilant. It was Sept. 10, a day after the introduction of the iPhone 6 and Apple Watch at the Flint Center in Cupertino, Calif., and Apple’s chief executive officer couldn’t have been happier about reactions from the audience and the media. Cook sat down for an hour-long chat with Bloomberg Businessweek’s Josh Tyrangiel and Brad Stone.

I love how the interview ended.

Haven’t picked up a new iPhone 6 or 6 Plus yet? Apple has posted these to help you see if there are even any in your neighbourhood.

Canada iPhone 6 Availabilty page

USA iPhone 6 Availabilty page

For the USA page, you’ll have to make your choice of iPhone and then scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and click on the link for “Available for pickup: Check availability”. If you know of similar links for other countries, please post them in the comments section.

Thanks to Sly Marton for the Canada link and Brian Monroe for the USA link.

It’s just incredible to see how many people are buying iPhones. Every year analysts say sales are slowing and every year Apple proves them wrong.

Visual Supply Co:

Advanced camera controls are now available for iOS 8. New features include:
– Manual focus
– Shutter speed
– White balance
– Exposure compensation

VSCO Cam is the first app I’ve seen that takes advantage of the new capabilities of iOS 8 in letting photographers take more control over the camera in the iPhone. Even better, it’s a free app.

“What was a complex environment with hundreds of phone types now has two: (Google) Android and Apple,” notes Thomas Noyes, former head of sales channels at Citigroup’s Global Consumer banking business who now heads Silicon Valley data-sharing firm Commerce Signals.

It’s the “complex environment” that Apple is so good at fixing. They’ve done it over and over again with products released in the past 15 years or so.

Today I Found Out:

Given that most have still heard of the Pony Express today, unlike so many other messaging companies long gone, you may think that the Pony Express was once an integral part of communication between the East and West in the United States. It turns out, this was never the case and the Pony Express was around only for an extremely short amount of time.

I love these stories of how things were done “in the old days”. One of my favourite non-fiction books is “American Road: The Story of an Epic Transcontinental Journey at the Dawn of the Motor Age” about the first US government sponsored cross country trip. Future President Eisenhower was a member of the group.

Today, Apple released an update to iCloud which gives Windows users early access to iCloud Drive. Ironically, Apple’s new cloud storage solution is not yet available on the public build of Mac OS X.

GODDAMNIT!

This is just great. Tim stops and chats with people, takes selfies and then opens the store.

I love the Scottish accent.

Apple:

Get started with these great free books.

Ten ebooks from Apple, ranging from crime fiction to comic books to Young Adult to classics. Thanks to Rob Griffiths for the link.

CARROT is a sadistic AI construct with one simple goal: to transform your flabby carcass into a Grade A specimen of the human race. She will do whatever it takes – including threatening, inspiring, ridiculing, and bribing you – to make this happen.

This really is a great app.

I always enjoy reading Shawn’s thoughts and reviews. I never really got the Kindle and still don’t.

Some have pointed out that password fields are excluded from using an alternative keyboard. This tells me that even Apple is a bit concerned about the consequences of logging key strokes. I’m not sure about everyone else, but I generally use a password to protect all of the other things I write with my keyboard. If every other keystroke is logged and transmitted to a server, my password becomes far less relevant.

This is worrisome.

There are some great tips here. No. 1 is my favorite, mostly because I learned that one the hard way. You don’t have to—and shouldn’t—make everything louder in a mix.

A nice set of images from Abdel Ibahim—it’s hard to argue with the logic.

Tim Higgins for Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s newest iPhones are fueling a surge in trade-ins of Android-based smartphones, threatening to loosen Samsung Electronics Co. (005930)’s grip on the large-screen smartphone segment as users switch allegiances.

When Apple’s main product, featuring bigger displays and faster chips, goes on sale starting in Australia, they may be best remembered as the generation of iPhones that won over consumers from rival smartphones. Trade-ins of Samsung phones with smartphone reseller Gazelle Inc. tripled last week and about a quarter of potential iPhone 6 buyers are new to Apple’s ecosystem, according to RBC.

It should be interesting to see Samsung’s next quarterly results.

I absolutely love 1Password and have beta tested the new version for quite a while. The new extensions work great—it’s a must have app.

Microsoft gave notice to 2,100 employees on Thursday, 747 of those in the Seattle area, a company spokesman said. That is in addition to 13,000 laid off in July, which means a further 2,900 are set to be laid off over the next nine months or so.

I hate seeing people lose their jobs, especially when it’s caused by executive mismanagement.

Storehouse is a visual storytelling app that was previously only available for iPad, but now an iPhone version has been released. I love this app.

Apple statement:

We discovered a bug that prevents us from making HealthKit apps available on iOS 8 today. We’re working quickly to have the bug fixed in a software update and have HealthKit apps available by the end of the month.

I’m sympathetic, but Apple should never have allowed this to happen. This isn’t good.

Apple:

I want to be absolutely clear that we have never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services. We have also never allowed access to our servers. And we never will.

Our commitment to protecting your privacy comes from a deep respect for our customers. We know that your trust doesn’t come easy. That’s why we have and always will work as hard as we can to earn and keep it.

I await similar letters from every other company we trust with our data.

Last year Apple stripped iOS bare in order to redefine how we do things. This year they build atop everything that came before in order to redefine what we can do.

I always love reading Rene’s reviews.

I really like the new interface myself. You can update directly from your Apple TV by going to Settings. This is what it looks like now.

A bug quietly reported on September 1 appears to have grave implications for Android users. Android Browser, the open source, WebKit-based browser that used to be part of the Android Open Source Platform (AOSP), has a flaw that enables malicious sites to inject JavaScript into other sites. Those malicious JavaScripts can in turn read cookies and password fields, submit forms, grab keyboard input, or do practically anything else.

I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

iOS 8 is, by any measure, a big update. A lot of it is refinement to last year’s drastic design overhaul, but there are also a lot of notable new features. Sitting amongst those refinements and big new features are little nuggets of delight in which Apple has designed or implemented something (whether it be a feature, design flourish or a shortcut) that you might not notice until one day you stumble upon it accidentally.

As usual, Federico Viticci, Graham Spencer and the crew at MacStories put together a great set of tips for the new iOS.

With Dan still out, Shawn fills in and talks to Jim about his iPhone 6 and 6 Plus review, where the Apple Watch will be sold and “is U2 the New Nickleback?”

Sponsored by MailChimp (Send 12,000 emails per month, to 2,000 subscribers, forever).

Fast Company:

The mobile version of Safari will now let you change the default search engine to DuckDuckGo, the privacy-obsessed Google alternative that has seen a sharp uptick in activity since Edward Snowden became a household name. By default, DuckDuckGo does not track its users’ search activity or even log their IP addresses.

Choice is always good and this is a pretty easy switch to make.

I love the apps that Cabel Sasser and the guys from Panic make. I’ve been using Transmit on my Mac for years and now there’s Transmit iOS.