Ebro Darden has been known to New Yorkers for years as the self-proclaimed “King Troll” of hip-hop radio. Currently the host of Hot 97’s Ebro in the Morning with Laura Stylez & Rosenberg show, the 43-year-old has also expanded into other arenas in recent years. Most notably, Darden has been playing an increasingly large role with Apple Music since joining Beats 1 Radio as an anchor in 2015.
Now, he’s journeying further into the Apple universe with a new job as global editorial head of hip-hop and R&B for Apple Music. The new gig will find Darden, the company says, “manag[ing] a team of hip-hop and R&B editors as they build out editorial plans for artists, albums and song releases.”
This is a good interview, but one thing struck me in particular. Take his title “global editorial head of hip-hop and R&B for Apple Music,” and change hip-hop and R&B to any music genre. I would love to see Apple doing the things outlined in this interview for all music genres.
(This is probably the worst site I’ve ever seen for ads. You’ve been warned.)
Apple today announced that App Store customers worldwide set new spending records over the holidays, wrapping up a record-breaking year. App Store spending topped $1.22 billion between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. Customers also spent over $322 million on New Year’s Day 2019 alone, setting a new single-day record.
“The App Store had a record-breaking holiday week and New Year’s Day. The holiday week was our biggest week ever with more than $1.22 billion spent on apps and games, and New Year’s Day set a new single-day record at more than $322 million,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Thanks to the inspiring work of our talented developers and the support of our incredible customers around the world, the App Store finished off an outstanding 2018 and kicked off 2019 with a bang.”
Super Dave Osborne was a comedy genius and a staple on TV in Canada. His stunts were fake and so hilarious, you couldn’t help but laugh out loud. You can read a bit more about his career on Variety, but here’s a compilation of some of his stunts.
Given the huge news from yesterday (Apple’s market-shaking earnings revision), I was particularly interested in this Tim Cook CNBC interview (embedded below).
I encountered the interview in the linked article, tantalizingly titled, “Tim Cook says he isn’t worried about traveling to China after the Huawei CFO’s arrest.”
John Gruber deconstructs Tim Cook’s “revising our guidance” announcement that is shaking the markets today (here’s a link if you want to check Apple’s current stock price, or just type AAPL into Google).
iPhone sales have effectively peaked for two reasons. First, Apple ran out of new markets to conquer years ago. The iPhone is effectively available worldwide.
And:
But there’s a limit on the number of people in the world who (a) want an iPhone and (b) can afford one, and the iPhone reached that 3-4 years ago. A bad economy in China significantly shrinks the number of people worldwide who can afford one. They’re much in the position Microsoft got to with Windows and PCs — they’re no longer an upstart growth company and are now a massively profitable blue chip.
Apple is making that shift from dependence on iPhone growth to services growth. The good news is that Apple’s services are, indeed, booming. This bad news is a bitter pill, but Apple will certainly get past this.
In an interview with CNBC yesterday (I’ll post that next), Tim highlights a number of services growth stories, including record numbers for Apple’s Chinese App Store.
That said, Apple’s services growth is dependent on ecosystem lock-in. That’s good business for Apple, but is it the best experience for consumers? Does that lock-in mean our photos, music, and message threads are captives of Apple’s iCloud subscription?
Rachel England, Engadget, on the newly announced USB Type-C Authentication Program:
The program defines the optimal cryptographic-based authentication for USB-C devices and chargers. Any host system using this protocol will be able to confirm the authenticity of a device or charger, including descriptors and capabilities, right at the moment a connection is made. So say, for example, you’re concerned about charging your phone at a public terminal. Your phone could implement a policy only allowing a charge from certified chargers. A company, meanwhile, could set a policy for its PCs, giving them access only to verified USB storage devices.
The concept would allow a setting in iOS, say, that required a cryptographic handshake before your connected device was allowed to communicated with a charger, for example.
The Chang’e-4 lunar probe, launched in December, made the “soft landing” at 0226 GMT and transmitted the first-ever “close range” image of the far side of the moon, the China National Space Administration said.
The moon is tidally locked to Earth, rotating at the same rate as it orbits our planet, so most of the far side – or “dark side” – is never visible to us. Previous spacecraft have seen the far side, but none has landed on it.
And:
As soon as 2022, NASA expects to begin building a new space station laboratory to orbit the moon, as a pit stop for missions to distant parts of the solar system.
A return to the space race, with the moon as a pitstop for the journey to Mars.
Earlier this year, Netflix was seen testing a bypass of iTunes billing across dozens of markets worldwide. As 2018 draws to a close, Netflix — the App Store’s top grossing app — has ditched the ability for new users to sign up and subscribe to the streaming service within its iOS app across all global markets. The change means Apple will miss out on hundreds of millions in App Store revenue per year — money it would have otherwise received by way of its standard cut of in-app transactions.
And:
Before the change, Netflix on iOS was grossing an average of $2.4 million per day in 2018 — meaning Apple was making around $700,000 by doing nothing other than allowing Netflix to offer subscriptions in its app.
Interesting power dynamics at work here. Netflix seems to hold all the cards here. Not sure there’s anything Apple can do to bring that revenue back.
Apple’s conference call to discuss final first fiscal quarter results is scheduled for Tuesday, January 29, 2019 at 2:00 p.m. PT/5:00 p.m. ET.
Following the letter from Tim Cook to Apple investors, “revising our guidance”, Apple has updated their investor relations page with details about their upcoming Q1 2019 analysts call. It promises to be interesting, to say the least.
Today we are revising our guidance for Apple’s fiscal 2019 first quarter, which ended on December 29. We now expect the following:
Revenue of approximately $84 billion
Gross margin of approximately 38 percent
Operating expenses of approximately $8.7 billion
Other income/(expense) of approximately $550 million
Tax rate of approximately 16.5 percent before discrete items
We expect the number of shares used in computing diluted EPS to be approximately 4.77 billion.
Based on these estimates, our revenue will be lower than our original guidance for the quarter, with other items remaining broadly in line with our guidance.
Share trading was halted today. Follow the headline link to read the rest of the letter. This seems pretty significant news.
The end of the calendar year is a time for lists. In the world of TV criticism, it’s a time for lists that purport to rattle off the 10 best shows (or more!) of the year. As I tried desperately to remember 10 shows I watched this year that I would classify as being deserving of such accolades, I realized two things. First, I realized that the best show I watched in 2018 was actually Justified, which went off the air three years ago.
Let me tell you: It was liberating to return to the crime-ridden hills and hollers of Harlan, Kentucky, and spend time with U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) and outlaw Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins).
I can’t argue with this. My wife hadn’t seen Justified when it originally aired so we watched it together. We were both blown away by how good a TV show (except for the awful fifth season) and wished it had continued.
The Apple Watch is packed with health and fitness features—so many that it can be overwhelming. But with a little thought, you can set up your watch so that it helps you to do great workouts and gets you ready for the next one.
Even when you’re cautious about sharing, Facebook’s dossier on you will be hefty. Facebook tackles its mission of “bringing the world closer together” by creating a map of humanity, and each of us represents a tiny node on this “social graph”.
Facebook’s privacy policies reinforce the message that “you have control over who sees what you share on Facebook.” But if you use Facebook at all, you don’t have much control over what Facebook itself sees about you.
There’s no doubt Facebook knows more about you than you realize but it also knows a lot about you that you gave Facebook voluntarily.
Steve Jobs once quoted Picasso: “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.”
True that. Innovative thinkers invent, observe and assimilate. They merge the old and new to create something fresh.
Apparently, the good and great artists were hard at work on Apple’s latest ad, Color Flood. I quite enjoyed it. But even as I watched it for the first time, I was visited by the Ghosts of Advertising Past.
I wasn’t nearly as enamored of the ad as Segall was but I do agree on the confusing message it sends.
Apple posted on its web site yesterday that 78% of all devices introduced in the last 4 years are using iOS 12, and 75% of all devices are using iOS 12. That’s a substantial numbers of people that are using the latest operating system.
A variety of skins are available for customizing the design of the Apple Pencil, but Reddit user Cedric Chase decided to take the do-it-yourself route with some sandpaper, synthetic fabric dye, and paint, transforming his second-generation Apple Pencil into one that closely resembles a No. 2 graphite pencil.
He did a great job, but there’s no way I take a chance on doing this with my new Apple Pencil.
It was only after they’d sunk $40,000 and nine months of precious nights and weekends that Jordan McDowell and William Bjork realized how hard it is to make a passive income selling things on Amazon.
The couple had hoped to strike it rich—or at least quit their day jobs—buying goods from China and reselling them on the e-commerce site. Instead, they lost all the money in their high yield savings account.
I feel bad for the people that have lost money trying to sell products on Amazon, or any other service, but when people claim to have all the answers to make you successful, it’s usually a scam. Those people never lose money.
The camera superstore B&H Photo Video is the largest non-chain camera store in the United States and one of the (if not the) largest in the world. The store made this 1.5-minute video that tells the story of how the juggernaut of the industry came to be.
B&H was born over 45 years ago, back in 1973, as a “mom and pop” camera store in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City.
B&H has had its challenges over the years but I always dropped in during the New York Macworld Expos because it was such a cool, old-school kind of store. If you’re ever in New York City, stop by just for the fun of it – and the free candy. And now I know what the “B&H” stands for.
The longevity of indie apps is more extraordinary when you consider the changes Apple put the Mac through from the early 1990s to 2018. Apple switched from Motorola 680×0 processors to PowerPC to Intel chips, from 32-bit to 64-bit code, and among supported coding languages. It revved System 7 to 8 to 9, then to Unix across now 15 major releases (from 10.0 to 10.14). That’s a lot for any individual programmer or small company to cope with.
Bare Bones’s head honcho, Rich Siegel, and the developers behind three other long-running Mac software programs shared with me their insight on development histories for over 25 years, what’s changed the most during that time, and any hidden treasures users haven’t yet found.
To stick around for 25 years is pretty remarkable (says the guy celebrating his 25th anniversary as a “podcaster” this coming March!) and these apps deserve all the accolades.
A 2018 survey from InterNations, the largest global network and information site for people who live and work abroad, has looked at data and comments supplied by almost 13,000 expats from 188 countries and territories to reveal which are the friendliest countries in the world to live.
I’m proud to live in #10 and very happy I’ll be spending a week in #1 this coming March.
There are myriad New Year’s Eve customs worldwide. In Japan, toshikoshi soba noodles are eaten to bring in the coming year. In North America, finding someone to share a New Year’s Eve kiss with as the clock winds down has become a boon to the romantically-challenged. In Germany, however, a different tradition has taken form: every year on December 31st, TV networks broadcast an 18-minute-long black and white two-hander comedy skit.
Celebrations to ring in the new year kicked off around the world on Monday, as people gathered and commemorated with fireworks, music and visual displays of many styles.
Here is a selection of images, updating as the new year spreads across the globe.
My family in Australia has already finished their celebrations and we here in British Columbia are getting prepped and ready. From my family to yours, I hope you have a happy, safe, fun, and joyous New Year’s Eve and 2019!
CNET: >I’ve raved about Etymotic ER4 in-ear headphones many times on this blog, because it’s one of the most neutral and accurate in-ear headphones you can buy without breaking the bank. Up until now, meet the ER4’s even more affordable little brother, the ER3. > >It looks similar to the ER4, and like that headphone the ER3 uses a single balanced armature driver housed in a precision machined metal ear piece.
The main difference between the two ‘phones is the ER4’s drivers are made in the US, while the ER3’s are made in Asia. Etymotic technicians match ER4’s left and right channel drivers to extremely close tolerances, within 1 dB from 100 Hz to 10 kHz., the ER3’s driver tolerances aren’t specified.
I’ve always been a big fan of not only the company Etymotic but also the people I’ve met there.
If you’re looking for a new set of headphones similar to CAD HD100 headphones for your music recording, then check out a helpful site like https://bringinthenoise.com/cad-dh100-we-put-it-through-the-wringer/ for more info!
For Christmas this year, my family adopted a young bearded dragon lizard as a pet.
Our dragon, whom we named Holly, eats a lot, and the thing she loves to eat most is crickets (typically about 10 a day, in addition to other things like mealworms and vegetables). From the get-go, I knew that keeping an ample supply of crickets on hand would require some planning. We live in a rural area of northwestern Minnesota. The closest pet shop is an hour away, in North Dakota. Restocking our cricket supply would require a time commitment of at least two hours out and back.
I read this on Twitter earlier today and thought it was the funniest thing I’d read all month.
By conventional measures, dart players are not the telegenic type. They mutter to themselves onstage. They wear flamboyant polyester polos. They cradle their handful of tiny spears and stare a lot at a fibrous board seven-feet, nine-and-a-quarter inches away.
But professional darts has catapulted itself from musty British pubs onto millions of television sets across Europe, an insurgency by a working-class sport that has turned the best of its mostly middle-aged players into stars.
The premier darting event, the William Hill World Championship, has grown into a three-week, $3-million-purse affair, replete with cheerleaders and thunderous walk-on music, and the sport’s promoters work tirelessly to ratchet up the show.
I love playing darts. I learned from my mother who was an incredible darts player. I’ll even admit to watching it on TV on occasion. The spectacle it has become is fascinating and not just a little bit ridiculous.
In the face of the retail apocalypse, Apple’s brick and mortar stores are thriving.
Apple is setting out to provide better service, more classes, and a better in-store experience, which is exactly what customers want. However, the company is also using its massive cash pile — estimated at $267 billion in May — to buy its way into historical buildings and expand its footprint into cherished public spaces. And that’s not as popular a proposition.
This is an interesting, if not completely accurate take on the issue. I would take issue with the “Even die-hard Apple fans need to be able to take a breath without always being sold something.” I’ve never felt like I was “always being sold something” when I went into an Apple store – and I’ve been in Apple stores all over the world. But it’s always good to critically examine how we use these spaces to ensure they are primarily serving people and not corporations.
More than a million revelers are expected to celebrate New Year’s in Times Square. They’ll start gathering in the early afternoon, the hard-core among them wearing diapers so as not to lose their spots. No matter where they stand, however, they are certain to be covered in some of the 3,000 pounds of confetti that will be released 20 seconds before midnight.
The New York City ball drop was always a big deal for us to watch on TV as a kid. That being said, there’s no chance I’ll ever want to actually be in Times Square for the ball drop.
Rene and I had a great conversation today that went from Apple’s triumphs of 2018 to how it could improve Siri while keeping its commitment to privacy.
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Arguably one of the biggest differences in physical design for the 2018 iPhone models, the iPhone XR has only one rear camera while the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max have two. AppleInsider takes a closer look at the situation to see if the iPhone XR’s single camera can still stand up to the dual-lens stablemates.
When the iPhone XR came out, I made the switch from the iPhone XS Max, thinking the camera would be just as good for those who want to save some cash, but I was wrong. After spending a month with the XR’s camera, I switched back to the XS Max. Here’s why.
Some very interesting photo evidence that starkly shows the differences. But the “average” user may not notice or care.
