XOJane:
Believe it or not, the customer service representative that you are speaking to wants to help you. Or at the very least, they want to fix your problem and get you off the line. So please. Allow the rep to do their job and actually listen to what they have to say!
It’s sad we live in a world where we need to have these kinds of things explained to people.
As a follow up to their “Need a Canadian Passport to open the beer fridge” stunt comes this one that is just as clever. It plays off the uniquely Canadian inability to remember the words to our national anthem. Still crappy beer though.
Apple on Tuesday released an update for iWork for iCloud. Each application received some new features and there are some features common to all of the apps. Changes implemented today include: […]
Macworld:
The price of buying an iMac just went down. But is a 15 percent lower price worth a 50 percent lower performance rating?The new $1099 iMac was slower across the board, and 54 percent slower overall, than the $1299 21.5-inch system.
This is definitely the iMac for the (very) casual user but I don’t know about “value for the money”. The specs make it seem awfully anemic.
John Gruber has a nice post talking about Bloomberg’s recent “Big iPhone” story, but the part that really got me was this:
Most people keep presenting this as a “bigger is better” situation, and that Apple has thus been caught flat-footed and behind, and now with the introduction of bigger-display iPhones they’re catching up.
He’s absolutely right. The media would have you believe that Apple is playing catchup in screen size, but that’s a ridiculous assumption. Apple could have put out a larger screen iPhone any time they wanted, but they chose functionality instead of adding enormous screen for the sake of adding an enormous screen. If anything, the competitors are playing catchup in usability.
Quartz:
Although the watch—designed in Paris and made in Switzerland—resembles its analog ancestors, it contains all the technology of a fitness tracker. It monitors distance covered (walking, running, or swimming), calories burned, and quantity and quality of sleep, all of which will sync with Withing’s existing Health Mate app. The watch, called Activité, can also tell time. It will automatically adjust to changing time zones, and its battery will last a year.The watch will be available for $390 this autumn, in two unisex color options.
It certainly is a nice looking watch. Not my “personal style” but simple and elegant looking – which I’m not.
WSJ:
Nest Labs is set to share some user information with corporate parent Google for the first time since its February acquisition.Matt Rogers, a co-founder of the smart-thermostat maker, said in an interview that Google will connect some of its apps to Nest, allowing Google to know when Nest users are at home or not.
And so it begins.
This weekend, Microsoft Stores launched a trade-in program to encourage sales of the new Surface Pro 3, but the trade-in promotion named only a single device: the MacBook Air, at a value of “up to $650” toward any Surface Pro 3 purchase. At the lowest specification, that trade-in amount would let buyers walk out of a Microsoft Store with an Intel i3 Surface Pro 3 for as little as $150.
My reaction when reading this:
Apple debuted a number of new channels to the Apple TV this morning, adding ABC News, PBS Kids, Willow TV, and AOL On. […]
AdWeek:
In an odd bit of on-stage irony, Bono gave broad praise to an audience of strangers and reserved his most pointed criticism for the old friend seated nearby: Apple design guru Jony Ive.“One of the reasons it’s such a credit to have Jony Ive on the stage,” Bono told panel moderator and Vice CEO Shane Smith, “is because Apple is so fucking annoyingly quiet about the fact they’ve raised $75 million. Nobody knows!”
Bono went so far as to stand up, pull out an official (Red) iPad cover and remove the device, illustrating to the audience that the only actual nod to the nonprofit was inside the cover and therefore always obscured by the tablet.
“Where’s the (Red) branding?” he asked Ive. “Nobody can see that. This is modesty run amok. This is the Apple way. They’re like a religious cult.”
Great to see Bono calling Apple out on their “understated” approach to this issue. But you’ll see that change within six months.
Angela Ahrendts:
Last month, as you might have heard, I started a new job. At some point in your career, maybe you too have made the life-altering decision to start anew. If so, you know firsthand how exciting, challenging and sometimes disorienting the first 30, 60, 90 days can be. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately myself.I am by no means an expert at these transitions, but I’ve always tried to be consistent in how I run, exit and begin in a new business. I thought I would share a few professional and personal insights which are helping me adapt to a new sector, culture and country.
Very interesting to see this – an Apple executive blogging could be fascinating, even if always vetted by the PR Machine.
It’s so much fun seeing what people are doing these days.
John Moltz wrote a great article on how important the experience is for Apple’s customer satisfaction ratings. When you first turn on an iOS device, your first experience is very positive. It’s easy to setup and get going within minutes. That’s important.
I’ve never seen anything like the fights that go on over the Oxford comma.
Eager to seize this promotional opportunity, Samsung Mobile Arabia’s verified Twitter account decided to tweet its best wishes for two stars of the company’s Galaxy 11 campaign, Cristiano Ronaldo and Landon Donovan, and their teams to its 106,000 followers. The only problem, of course, is that Landon Donovan was left off of the U.S.’s World Cup squad a month ago.
Come on Samsung, seriously?
Great article by Dan Frommer. People seem to forget that Apple did not create the iPhone and iPad in a few days or even years, for that matter. Apple is methodical in perfecting its new ideas to make sure they measure up to its demanding standards. That’s what Tim Cook is doing. The company is profitable behind belief and Tim is well respected by shareholders, consumers and the industry. Apple’s future is in good hands.
I use my iPhone as my only camera and it does quite well for me. Om Malik recently tried a new app that specializes in black & white photos and has posted some samples as well. I do like the simplicity of the app, but I think I may just use the iPhone camera for the same results.
Winclone is a great way to make a complete backup of your Boot Camp partition so that you can quickly restore back to Windows in Boot Camp. Boot Runner provides an easy way to switch between OS X and Windows on dual boot Macs. Works great for both individuals and dual boot labs.
When you get a new Mac or have issues with your Windows installation in Boot Camp, re-installing Windows is time consuming and difficult. Winclone makes it easy to make a complete copy of the Boot Camp partition, and restores it back to the exact same state on your existing or new Mac. Winclone supports migration of Boot Camp partitions between Macs, moving your Boot Camp partition to an external drive to free up space, and more. It works great for mass deployment. Boot Camp can be deployed as an OS X installer package and you can also use it with existing Windows tools such as SCCM and Sys Prep for easy mass deployment.
If you manage lots of dual boot Macs, Boot Runner provides a great way to manage the OS selection. You decide which OS by selecting OS X or Windows prior to logging in. It works great in labs. Administrators can fully customize and manage the selection screen, and can remotely select the OS through network policy. Boot Runner includes a scheduling feature to make sure that the Mac is booted into Windows for important system and virus updates. Check out the intro video to learn more.
Winclone and Boot Runner are available for purchase and download today at twocanoes.com and both have full phone and online support options.
My thanks to Many Tricks for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed on The Loop. Moom is Many Tricks’ window moving and zooming app. If you find the behavior of the green zoom button mysterious and thus avoid using it, you’ll love Moom—hover over the green button, and a pop-up palette appears, letting you quickly choose from five built-in size/location options. But you can also create custom commands that will move windows to other displays, size and position them exactly as you wish, or perform many other actions, including centering. Finally, if you use one display at one location, but multiple displays elsewhere, Moom can memorize your open windows for both setups, and automatically switch to the saved layout when the display setup changes. Check it out at Many Tricks.
New York Times:
Nest Labs, a maker of digital thermostats, announced Friday evening that it planned to buy another fast-growing producer of home devices, Dropcam, for $555 million in cash.The deal is another sign of the industry optimism that the emerging market for Internet-connected smart devices in the home is poised for rapid growth. The most striking sign of such enthusiasm is Nest itself, which Google bought this year for $3.2 billion.
In a brief interview, Matt Rogers, co-founder of Nest, said, “This is a Nest Labs deal, not a Google deal.”
It will be interesting to see how these two companies/devices will fit together going forward.
Computerworld:
On June 23, we will publish the last print issue of Computerworld.It was 47 years ago, almost to the day, that Computerworld’s very first issue rolled off the presses: June 21, 1967. The newspaper’s first publisher was the late Patrick J. McGovern, who was the founder and chairman of International Data Group (IDG), Computerworld’s parent company.
It’s sad to lose anything that has endured so long. But we are merely taking part in the natural evolution of the media industry, like so many great publications before us. Trains, after all, were once powered by coal and steam; Computerworld is moving from paper to electrons.
I think Macworld magazine is IDG’s last that still appears in print form. Anyone think the print edition of Macworld will be around in five years? I don’t.
New York’s Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced police data revealing a that iPhone robberies in San Francisco dropped by more than a third (38 percent), while New York City has seen robberies and ‘grand larcenies from a person’ involving an iPhone drop by 19 and 29 percent. In London, Apple-targeted thefts were down by 24 percent.
Those are significant numbers.
A Surface Pro 3 user manual that can be downloaded directly from Microsoft’s site lists the Surface Mini four times, proving the mention of the smaller tablet isn’t just an accident. The mentions also make it clear that the Surface Mini will come with a Surface Pen, just like its bigger brother.
It won’t help.
The way things are going, every kid is going to go to school wearing bubble wrap and a helmet. Back in the 1970s (and earlier), parents didn’t stress about our health and safety as much as they do today. It’s not that they cared less – they just didn’t worry compulsively about it.Parents of 2014 need to be reminded of how less restricted, less supervised, less obsessively safety-conscious things were… and it was just fine.
Tthese stories are always kind of amusing to those of us old enough to remember these dangers. And to be clear, a lot of the things this article is nostalgic about were actually bad for us.
John Mayer: Someday I’ll Fly chronicles the musical evolution of one of the most influential solo artists of his generation. Featuring rare demos, interviews and live performances; it is told in it’s entirety from Mayer’s perspective. Explore the full story and creative process of acclaimed, Grammy Award winning, guitarist and singer-songwriter John Mayer.
A leading scientist was ejected by fellow audience members during a performance of Handel’s Messiah after he took the director’s invitation to “clap and whoop” to the music a step too far by attempting to crowd-surf.
Love it.
Grantland:
There are two things that make Diplomacy so unique and challenging. The first is that, unlike in most board games, players don’t take turns moving. Everyone writes down their moves and puts them in a box. The moves are then read aloud, every piece on the board moving simultaneously.The second is that prior to each move the players are given time to negotiate with each other, as a group or privately. The result is something like a cross between Risk, poker, and Survivor.
I played this game in college and loved it. The key is you can’t win the game without cooperating with at least one other player but you also can’t win without screwing over at least one other player. The “when do I screw over my friend?” is the most fraught part of the game.
The very mention of that word—the single-most offensive name one could ever call a Native American—has always made my blood boil.Non-Natives may never quite understand how deep the term “redskins” cuts into ancient wounds that have never quite healed, and maybe it’s not reasonable to expect them to. But every time Dan Snyder refuses to change his NFL team’s name, even with tribes paying for powerful ads in opposition like the one that recently aired during the NBA Finals, Snyder plunges a long, twisted blade into our hearts.
For any numbers of reasons enumerated here and elsewhere, it’s time to change the name of the team.