Microsoft said on Monday that it was acquiring LinkedIn in a $26.2 billion cash deal, as the company seeks new sources of growth on the internet.
The acquisition, by far the largest in Microsoft’s history, unites two companies in different businesses: one a big maker of software tools, the other the largest business-oriented social networking site with more than 400 million members globally. Both, though, make most of their money by catering to professionals.
Does this mean LinkedIn will get more or less annoying?
Like many of her fellow attendees, Vijay has created a handful of apps for Apple’s iPhone and iPad. But the biggest difference between her and the thousands of other developers who will flock San Francisco’s Moscone Center on Monday is that Vijay is now only nine years-old.
Vijay is attending WWDC as part of Apple’s scholarship program, which gives hundreds of free tickets to developers from around the world who are creating apps for Apple devices. This year’s group of recipients saw the most winners under the age of 18, and a more diverse crowd than years past. Out of 350 recipients, 120 of the lucky winners are students under the age of 18. Submissions increased by 215% more than doubled from organizations focused on science, technology, engineering, and math.
She started coding at seven. When I was nine, I couldn’t even spell “programming”, let alone do it.
After regaining control of his Twitter account, Mckesson explained that the hacker or hackers were able to take over by convincing Verizon to reset his SIM. With the SIM reset, the person responsible was able to receive text messages intended for Mckesson and therefore bypass the two-factor authentication the activist used to keep his account secure.
The band’s new album dropped today. They’ll be one of the bands playing at the Beard Bash on Monday in San Francisco, so you can grab the album before the show.
Amazon.com Inc is preparing to launch a standalone music streaming subscription service, placing it squarely in competition with rival offerings from Apple Inc and Spotify, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
The service will be offered at $9.99 per month, in line with major rivals, and it will offer a competitive catalog of songs, the sources said. Amazon (AMZN.O) is finalizing licenses with labels for the service, which likely will be launched in late summer or early fall, the sources said.
I sure hope Apple has its shit together because Amazon is a master at the cloud.
I know the Apple Maps page says it will show notifications of construction and accidents, but this is the first time I’ve personal seen an accident shown in Maps. It happened once and I haven’t seen one again, even though Google Maps will show accidents along my route.
Peter Thiel is getting closer to his goal: Gawker Media has filed for bankruptcy protection and says it eventually plans to find a new owner for the company.
We’ve investigated claims of Twitter @names and passwords available on the “dark web,” and we’re confident the information was not obtained from a hack of Twitter’s servers.
The purported Twitter @names and passwords may have been amassed from combining information from other recent breaches, malware on victim machines that are stealing passwords for all sites, or a combination of both. Regardless of origin, we’re acting swiftly to protect your Twitter account.
Bluetooth 5, the next generation of Bluetooth standard, will be formally announced next week, offering double the range and quadruple the speed of the current low-energy wireless protocol.
The announcement will come on June 16 from the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, of which Apple is a member.
Apple will announce that iMessage encrypted text messaging is coming to Android users at WWDC next Monday at WWDC 2016, according to a source familiar with the company’s thinking.
This will make it possible for Android and iOS users to communicate securely as iMessage features end-to-end encryption – even Apple cannot access users’ messages.
I would welcome that development. My only concern would be security of your iMessage credentials.
And now come signs that Mr. Jobs means to take Apple back to the land of the handhelds, but this time with a device that would combine elements of a cellphone and a Palm -like personal digital assistant.
Mr. Jobs and Apple decline to confirm those plans. But industry analysts see evidence that Apple is contemplating what inside the company is being called an “iPhone.”
Among the evidence, they say, is recent behind-the-scenes wrangling between Palm and Apple over linking Palm’s own devices to Apple’s new operating system — apparently with little cooperation on Apple’s part.
Love this bit of history. Uncovered by Yoni Heisler at BGR.
If you’ve ever lived with low-res graphics, you will absolutely love playing with BitCam. Incredibly well done, a real blast from the past.
Here’s a sample:
There are three default resolution sizes (Super-Res, Standard, and FatBits). The mug shot (sorry!) was taken with FatBits. You can also pay $1.99 to add color.
Fun!
UPDATE: If you like BitCam, you might also check out Console Cam. Similar, but different.
Also, I’d love it if I could take the picture with BitCam but then recover the original .jpg. IconFactory folk, any way to do this? Was thinking of taking all my WWDC photos with BitCam, but don’t want to lose the resolution.
It would be fine if all of those USB-C accessories you purchased for your 2015 MacBook were firmware upgradeable and received updates like Apple’s own products, but many of them are not. So if you have accessories purchased for the 2015 MacBook, there is a good possibility they won’t work with your 2016 MacBook or any other new USB-C device. Accessory makers also tell me Apple changed power protocols in the 2016 MacBook meaning 5W-12W battery packs that could be used with the 2015 model over USB-C no longer work with the new 2016 model now requiring at least 18W. And if you grab a USB-C cable or other accessory, don’t expect it to just work with your Mac. Not such a great situation for a standard that’s supposed to, you know, standardize compatibility of products using the spec.
Wow. If and when Apple does release a new MacBook Pro that relies on USB-C ports, will this complicate the problem further? Will I need to mark my cables with the device for which they were designed? Will my MacBook Pro not be able to charge using a MacBook 2016 charger?
I think the best thing that can be said for subscriptions is that they’re honest and mostly align everyone’s incentives properly. Customers will essentially vote with their wallets, on an ongoing basis. Developers who maintain and improve their apps will get recurring revenue. Apple will get more revenue when it steers customers to good apps. Over time, more of the money will flow to the apps that people actually like and use. My guess is that the average customer will end up spending more money on fewer paid apps. Some apps will become more sustainable, but others will be culled.
Once the uncertainty about which apps are eligible for subscriptions is cleared up, I think there are going to be specific qualities that justify a maintenance-style subscription: quality apps for a particular audience, made by indie developers who issue regular updates. And I think it needs all of those factors. Users aren’t going to pay for an app maintenance subscription if the app is of mediocre quality, or if the developer is a huge company, or if it is infrequently updated — or, at least, does not have some sort of ongoing justification for its subscription cost.
I think Apple should let app developers price as they see fit: a one time fee, in-app purchase (clearly marked), or subscription. Give this new subscription model some time to ripen, use that time to learn. And just reserve the right to reject apps that misuse subscriptions.
By allowing app developers to choose for themselves, they will help flesh out this new scheme and, who knows, an innovative new solution might emerge.
Jim, Dan, and Haddie talk about WWDC, Apple’s developer focus, the pre-announcements, Search Ads, Siri on the Mac, no hardware, security features, dark mode, update to Siri, Apple Music, the return of the categories tab, the app review process, and more.
The U.S. Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court ruling that had favored Apple Inc over Samsung Electronics Co Ltd in smartphone patent litigation, and asked that it return the case to the trial court for more litigation.
Samsung are thieving scumbags and should pay. Period.
I frowned, recoiled, and muttered an audible “ew.” Thus was my reaction upon viewing this color. We all have our own tastes, but it seems that there’s one color most of us can agree is especially disgusting, but that helps it serve a useful purpose.
We talk a lot about color toning, and the truth is, it’s one of those subtler steps that can really make a good image a standout image. Sometimes though, it smacks you in the face, as is the case with the color opaque couché, Pantone 448 C. Australian researchers believe it’s the “ugliest” color as judged by the reactions study participants had to it.
It’s hard to argue when the color is described as “sewage-tinted” and “death”. Why would you use such a color? Read the article to find out the very interesting reason.
A crash at the Isle of Man TT is not a light affair, and more often than not, a mistake by a rider means grave bodily harm, and even death. The TT course is unforgiving like that, lined with houses, trees, posts, and all other manner of obstacles. This isn’t the Grand Prix, there are no run-offs.
James Cowton got this reminder the hard way, running wide on a turn during the Superstock TT race. In the video, you can see Cowton crashing into the barrier, and taking the sponsor banner with him. Cowton then rolls back into the racing line…right in front of Horst Saiger, who was trailing close behind.
I absolutely love the Isle of Man TT – it’s on my motorcycle bucket list – but it’s terrifying watching these videos. Sadly, riders die on a regular basis in the weeks of the TT. Luckily, this rider was relatively unscathed.
These aerial clips, taken from 32 separate videos in all, were the official selections at the festival and were captured by everybody from individual filmmakers to National Geographic and USA Today. Click play to get your dose of drone-captured awesome for the day.
Fadell has said he made the decision to leave Nest last year, and sources tell me he wrestled with the idea of leaving Nest for weeks before telling Alphabet CEO Larry Page of his plans in December. The impetus, according to several sources close to Nest, was the increased pressure on Nest to deliver profitable results as a standalone unit inside the new Alphabet operating structure, instead of being safely ensconced inside Google and given room to grow. Fadell had been turned into a manager tasked with steadily growing his businesses instead of serving as a visionary CEO, and ultimately he walked away.
And:
“Tony at Alphabet was paying Google employees at Google rates with Google benefits. He was paying Google rents. This is not what a startup does,” says Komisar. “The real story is Alphabet. This isn’t really about Tony Fadell. This isn’t really about Nest. Nest is still full of potential. This is about Google, and Google’s decision to build Alphabet.”
A smart startup will run lean, as if any money spent was coming out of the CEO’s pocket. Easy to yield to temptation when someone else is paying the bills.
A few hours later, Bryan Thompson was on a plane to San Francisco to meet up with the rest of his small team who’d been working on a small, lightweight and ultra-modern prototype car called the V-Vehicle. Jobs, the team was told, was an informal advisor to the investors, and curious about the project.
It was May 2010, and Thompson, an experienced industrial designer, had spent two years working on the secretive car project. Their mission was to up-end the car industry by creating a lightweight, petroleum-powered car that used cheaper materials and could sell for just $14,000. And backed by Silicon Valley investors including Kleiner Perkins, Caufield & Byers (KPCB), Jobs wanted to see it.
An early look at Jobs’ and Apple’s interest in pursuing their own car project.
On Wednesday, Apple detailed major shake-ups coming to its powerful app store. Those include a new revenue-sharing model that would give developers more money when users subscribe to a service via their apps — instead of keeping 70 percent of all revenue generated from subscriptions, publishers will be able to keep 85 percent of revenue, once a subscriber has been paying for a year.
Now Google plans to up the ante at its app store: It will also move from a 70/30 split to 85/15 for subscriptions — but instead of requiring developers to hook a subscriber for 12 months before offering the better split, it will make it available right away.
Still trying to wrap my head around the logic of waiting 12 months before the 85/15 split locks in.
The Apple Watch’s app model doesn’t work. The large screen of circular app icons is hard to navigate, and most apps aren’t worth the trouble, often because they’re slow and unreliable. Glances are interesting, but often too limited. The sole button is dedicated to a feature—bringing up a wheel of friends so you can send them texts and Digital Touch sketches—that’s not remotely core to the experience of using the device. There aren’t enough watch face options, and the ones that do exist aren’t particularly customizable. Fitness features are erratic and require too much user interaction.
And:
I’d like to see at least an option to map the watch’s button to an action other than bringing up a list of favorite friends. More watch faces are also on my wish list, and while I’d like to see third-party watch faces, I’d trade that for Apple-designed faces that are more flexible about how (and when) they display information, including support for complications that appear only in certain contexts.
Third party watch faces would be a big win. Or how about the ability to resize the various areas that make up the watch face?
The biggest problem with the Apple Watch is that it’s sloooooow. The second biggest problem is that it’s sloooooooooooooooow. There’s only so much software can do to fix those problems without a commensurate hardware update, but there are improvements that can be made so that we spend less time waiting for our Apple Watch.
And that’s the biggest problem of all. Snappy is as snappy does.
Tuesday, Phil Schiller had a sit-down to talk about major changes coming to the App Store. Jim Dalrymple wrote a nice overview of the changes in this post.
One of the three core topics Phil covered was the expansion of subscription pricing. From JimD’s post:
Currently the 70-30 revenue split for subscriptions is the same as regular purchased apps. However, under the new subscription rules, that revenue split will favor the developers more in the second year on individual subscriptions. Developers will get an 85-15 revenue share for all subscribers that have been customers for over a year. This will also affect all existing apps and subscribers, not just new apps.
Developers will be able to choose one of over 200 subscription price points, and they can create territory specific prices, making subscriptions even more flexible.
John Gruber dug into the details in this longer post, focusing on the uncertainty seemingly built into the system:
The problem with that is that developers don’t know whether they’re going to be approved or not. As it stands, they would need to do all the engineering (and design) work to support subscriptions, submit the app, and wait to see if it’s approved and perhaps appeal if it isn’t. That’s bad enough for an existing app whose developer wants to switch to subscription pricing. But this uncertainty is downright untenable for a new app whose developer sees subscription pricing as the only sustainable business model to justify the app’s development in the first place.
The dream for developers is to be able to make money doing what they love, building apps for the App Store. For most developers, that dream is simply unrealistic. The App Store economics just aren’t there any more. The possibility of subscription pricing can help balance the scales, make it more financially feasible to make a living building and maintaining apps.
But developers need a bit more guidance here. They need to know up front if an app they build is eligible for subscription pricing. If not, they can put there energies into building something else.
My guess is, this guidance is coming, either at next week’s WWDC or as subscription pricing gets closer to rollout. But sooner is better than later for these details.
If you are an independent app developer or publisher, you have probably known this for a while, because you have found it very difficult to get people to download your app — the average American smartphone user downloads zero apps per month.
But now even the very biggest app publishers are seeing their growth slow down or stop altogether. Most people have all the apps they want and/or need. They’re not looking for new ones.
Last month, the top 15 app publishers saw downloads drop an average of 20 percent in the U.S., according to research from Nomura, which relies on data from app tracker SensorTower.
Indie developers have known this for quite some time, but the falling numbers are making their way to the very top of the food chain, where the bread is buttered.
Makes me wonder if that is part of the motivation for Apple’s App Store shakeup.
