There are two Apples: AAPL, the stock, and Apple, the company. While it would seem logical that one is merely a reflection of the other, in reality, the two are guided by vastly different parameters. Over the long run, Apple and AAPL will likely be at odds with each other due to the very nature of Apple’s long-term mission of making products that people love. It is the classic Wall Street vs. Silicon Valley battle, and 2015 was likely just a taste of what is to come.
It would be an understatement to say that AAPL had a weak 2015. When looking at stock price performance, AAPL’s underperformance was quite striking. While GOOG, FB, and AMZN saw strong double-digit stock price increases, AAPL reported a rare 3% decline, the first annual decline since 2008. Even more striking, AAPL’s performance meant that the market removed $46 billion of market cap from AAPL in 2015, whereas AMZN and GOOG were given nearly $350 billion of additional market capitalization.
Wall St never ceases to amaze me and I don’t mean that in a good way. From the outside, it looks like Apple – with record profits, sales, market share and category ownership – would be a Wall Street success story, Cybart does a good job of explaining why the exact opposite is true.
This is a beautiful, video-laden project from the New York Times. It highlights 52 different cities to visit, a sort of bucket list, each accompanied by a writeup, a small map, and a sparkling photo or short video. Lovely job by the Times’ travel team.
Elon Musk, in a BBC interview, talks about the Tesla Model 3, in production next year, designed to be affordable for the masses. When asked about Apple’s plans, he (almost reluctantly, it seems) makes the point that it is an open secret that Apple is working on a car of their own.
The owner of The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com has donated the news organizations to a newly created media institute, the core of a complicated transaction designed to ensure that quality journalism endures in Philadelphia for generations.
The move places the region’s dominant news-gatherers under the auspices of the nonprofit Philadelphia Foundation.
“Of all the things I’ve done, this is the most important,” said H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest, sole owner of Philadelphia Media Network, which runs the newspapers and website. “Because of the journalism.”
Most importantly:
The new alignment – while unique and untested – sets out mechanisms by which public-interest reporting can be preserved and enhanced while new electronic distribution methods are developed.
This is a groundbreaking business model for newspapers. The skeptic inside me questions the financial aspects of the deal. If the paper lost money as a for-profit vehicle, how will it pay the bills as a non-profit? But there are answers to these questions, apparently. Time will tell. If this works, this could be a way for the news business to survive while still serving the public interests.
This is a great read. Veteran journalist Steven Levy got the chance to interview Ford’s Executive Chairman Bill Ford (former CEO and namesake Henry Ford’s great-grandson). Like everything Steven Levy writes, this is well written, thoughtful, and entertaining.
The most highlighted element from the post is this quote:
“To me, Silicon Valley is an interesting culture, but in its own way it’s every bit as insular as the Detroit culture has been accused of being. There’s a feeling that if something doesn’t originate in the Valley, it’s not worthwhile.”
I see Apple and Ford as two great institutions moving towards each other. It’ll be interesting to see if Apple makes cars and if Ford moves into digital devices.
An interesting article from Forbes. Before you follow the link, you might want to read this Daring Fireball post first.
That said, Avi Dan, writing for Forbes:
Apple, is the most influential American company. Reaching out to Madison Avenue and recruiting Myhren and other well-known creative luminaries is a game changer. I believe that more companies will follow suit and enlist top creative directors to head their internal creative teams. And that would be disruptive for traditional ad agencies.
Why are talented creatives leaving agencies and going client-side?
The people who generate all the ideas and work are passionate and ambitious for their ideas. Agencies, on the other hand, are happy to keep trying to live in a world which is ceasing to exist. Clinging onto the same attitude, tools, and ways of working with CEOs who are either oblivious to the current mindset or too frightened to instigate change. It’s the perfect storm of increasing decreasing loyalty and an industry reveling in mediocrity.
Ad agencies are geared to make money, to bloat projects, to burn hours. Those hourly billings have become Madison Avenue’s real product. This is not what many “A” creatives aspire for. The holding companies, agency bureaucracies and account people that insert themselves into the process have often impeded and, indeed, disrupted an environment that allows for great work.
The fly in this ointment is that there is a limit to the number of companies that can afford to bring “A” talent in house. This is more of a drain of top talent that will dilute the agency model, but I don’t see it disrupting the model entirely. Still, an interesting observation.
Beginning January 12, 2016, only the most current version of Internet Explorer available for a supported operating system will receive technical supports and security updates. Internet Explorer 11 is the last version of Internet Explorer, and will continue to receive security updates, compatibility fixes, and technical support on Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10.
And:
Microsoft Edge is our all-new browser for Windows 10, that goes beyond browsing with features like Web Note and Cortana1 integration. Microsoft Edge can launch Internet Explorer 11 for sites that need better backward compatibility. Internet Explorer 11 will continue to be supported on Windows 10.
The push to Windows 10 continues. I’ve moved completely off dependence on any Microsoft products. It’s amazing how the business world no longer revolves around Word, Excel, and Outlook.
In a nutshell, The Telegraph ran an article that said:
Apple is under pressure from mobile operators to make it easier for customers to switch between the iPhone and smartphones that use Google’s Android software, amid mounting fears over its dominance.
According to a senior industry source, Apple has privately agreed to develop a simple tool to help consumers shift data such as contacts, music and photos if they move to Android. Major European telecoms operators are concerned that only a tiny fraction of customers ever move off the iPhone, in part because of the technical hassle of transferring data.
Buzzfeed followed with this article, and a definitive “No we’re not” from Apple:
On Monday afternoon, Apple responded to reports claiming it is developing just such an iOS-to-Android tool by rather definitively calling bullshit.
“There is no truth to this rumor,” Apple spokesperson Trudy Muller said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. “We are entirely focused on switching users from Android to iPhone, and that is going great.”
Earlier today, Apple released the first developer beta of iOS 9.3, which will introduce several new functionalities for built-in apps and for education users. To highlight some of the changes in this release, Apple has launched a mini-site with screenshots and descriptions of what’s coming in iOS 9.3.
The function will now be restricted on residential roads or roads without a center divider, meaning the car cannot drive faster than the speed limit maximum plus five miles (8 km) per hour.
I don’t know how I feel about this whole thing. On one hand they are keeping if off the freeways, but the residential areas is where kids play, right?
When Autopilot launched in October, Musk cautioned the hotly anticipated function was in beta mode, or a test phase of development, with full ‘hands-off’ driving not recommended.
Is this really the type of technology we want to launch in beta mode?
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2015 is in the books. As this is a site with Apple as a primary focus, I thought it might be worthwhile to ask a bunch of my colleagues who pay attention to Apple and related markets to take a moment and reflect on Apple’s performance in the past year.
A few months back, designer Khoi Vinh provided the seed of an idea: “an annual Apple report card, as graded by Mac journalists,” his email read.
So in December I emailed a group of writers, editors, podcasters, and developers, and asked them to take a brief survey. They were prompted with 11 different Apple-related subjects, and asked to rate them on a scale from 1 to 5, as well as optionally provide text commentary on their vote.
Interesting results, from iPhone at the very top to HomeKit at the very bottom. Interestingly, reports back from CES say that the Internet of Things marketplace is a real mess with five different competing standards. It’s no surprise that HomeKit is ranked so poorly.
Issues of ownership and fair play are at the heart of The Authors Guild’s lawsuit against internet giant Google, which has, without permission from authors and without paying for their copyrighted material, digitized millions of their books while ignoring, as if these were irrelevant, their creators’ claims to ownership. Google has justified this theft by arguing that the use they were making of our property was “transformative,” a public service. They wouldn’t be selling our books for profit, just providing a research tool that displays only snippets, which would fall under the doctrine of “fair use.” More information would be available to more people. Ignoring the original theft, the courts have so far agreed.
I’ve had a number of books appear on Google Books (go here, then do a search for “Dave Mark”). I was never asked my opinion about including these books in the process, and I was certainly never asked permission, even though I own the copyright on most of these.
A real sign of popularity of a book is that moment when someone on the internet makes a copy of the book and puts it on a warez site. I’ve watched this happen again and again. There’s no stopping it. As these downloads start appearing, you can issue takedowns, but the same content will just appear on a different site in a matter of hours. There’s a sense of powerlessness that comes over you. Once you release your book, you no longer have control over it.
That same feeling hit me the first time I saw one of my books on Google Books. As Richard says:
What would I and my fellow authors have done if Google had come to us, respecting our ownership of what we’d created, and asked our permission? I guess we’ll never know, because they didn’t feel the need.
Jack Marshall and Steven Perlberg, writing for the Wall Street Journal:
The company mistakenly has been underestimating the number of readers using the News app since its launch, and passing that inaccurate information on to publishers.
Publishers don’t pay to post their content to the News app, but getting an accurate tally of users is important because it can affect their ability to sell advertising and to manage their resources accordingly. Apple allows publishers to keep 100% of revenue when they sell their own ads into the app; they keep 70% of ad revenue if Apple sells ads on their behalf.
Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, said the company missed the error as it focused on other aspects of the product. The company didn’t explain how the problem occurred or say exactly when it might be rectified.
“We’re in the process of fixing that now, but our numbers are lower than reality,” he said. “We don’t know what the right number is,” but he added that it was better to undercount than overcount traffic.
That last is certainly true, but this is an embarrassing hiccough that Apple News did not need.
Burberry has announced its arrival on Apple TV and will mark the occasion with the app’s first ever fashion show livestream.
The fashion brand, winner of The Drum’s most creative brand in the New Year’s honours list, will livestream its menswear show at London’s Kensington Gardens on 11 January on Apple TV.
The event will also include a live performance by Mercury Prize winner, Benjamin Clementine as part of Burberry’s Acoustic films- an initiative to support emerging British musicians.
The Burberry app will offer access to a collection of the Burberry Acoustic films, , highlights from the brand’s previous shows and Burberry beauty tutorials by the brands make-up Artistic Consultant, Wendy Rowe. Throughout the year Burberry has promised to update the app with additional live moments and exclusive content.
Apple’s Senior VP of Retail and Online Stores, Angela Ahrendts, is a former CEO of Burberry.
A new commercial for the 2016 Chevy Malibu features a short mention of Apple CarPlay that starts at about 1:01 into the video shown below. This video is a longer version than the one that aired this weekend, but the Apple CarPlay mention here is exactly the same as the one that aired.
TechCrunch has obtained photographic evidence and an eyewitness report that Facebook has built an as-yet-unreleased Facebook Messenger For Mac desktop app. The photo below shows a Facebook employee using it.
David Bowie, the self-described “tasteful thief” who appropriated from and influenced glam rock, soul, disco, new wave, punk rock and haute couture, and whose edgy, androgynous alter egos invited fans to explore their own dark places, died Jan. 10, two days after his 69 th birthday.
The cause was cancer, his family said on official Bowie social media accounts. Relatives also confirmed the news but did not disclose where he died.
With his sylphlike body, chalk-white skin, jagged teeth and eyes that appeared to be two different colors, Mr. Bowie combined sexual energy with fluid dance moves and a theatrical charisma that mesmerized male and female admirers alike.
Mr. Bowie wrote songs, above all, about being an outsider: an alien, a misfit, a sexual adventurer, a faraway astronaut. His music was always a mutable blend: rock, cabaret, jazz and what he called “plastic soul,” but it was suffused with genuine soul. He also captured the drama and longing of everyday life, enough to give him No. 1 pop hits like “Let’s Dance.”
One of the most original and singular voices in rock & roll for nearly five decades, Bowie championed mystery, rebellion and curiosity in his music. Ever unpredictable, the mercurial artist and fashion icon wore many guises throughout his life. Beginning life as a dissident folk-rock spaceman, he would become an androgynous, orange-haired, glam-rock alien (Ziggy Stardust), a well-dressed, blue-eyed funk maestro (the Thin White Duke), a drug-loving art rocker (the Berlin albums), a new-wave hit-maker, a hard rocker, a techno enthusiast and a jazz impressionist. His flair for theatricality won him a legion of fans.
Along the way, he charted the hits “Space Oddity,” “Changes,” “Fame,” “Heroes,” “Let’s Dance” and “Where Are We Now?” among many others. Accordingly, his impact on the music world has been immeasurable. Artists who have covered Bowie’s songs and cited him as an influence include Nirvana, Joan Jett, Duran Duran, Smashing Pumpkins, Marilyn Manson, Arcade Fire, Oasis, Ozzy Osbourne, Morrissey, Beck, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lady Gaga, Bauhaus and Nine Inch Nails.
The X-Files’ complicated mythology, both real and scripted, makes its history the source of endless pop-culture autopsies. But as Fox readies a six-episode revival (starting Jan. 24), the people most responsible for the enduring franchise sound off — for the first time in the same place — about how the show came to be. And be again.
I’ve always been a huge fan of this show (and was even an extra on a few episodes). When it was good (and it wasn’t in the last couple of years on air), it was the best show on TV and I’m really looking forward to seeing the new episodes.
There are two common misunderstandings of the news. One reading (from Apple critics) assumes this locks you into proprietary Apple headphones. It doesn’t. The other (from Apple fans who don’t know that much about audio) assumes higher audio fidelity from “digital” headphones. It probably doesn’t mean that, either (there are some benefits to putting the digital-to-analog converters off the device, but no indication yet that will necessarily mean better sound). First, let’s consider why Apple would do such a thing.
I still don’t see the downside to making this change.
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One movie trope Hollywood just can’t seem to move past? The frantic hacker. Here’s how those scenes usually go: A character on the screen is shown banging away at a keyboard while a timer counts down and lines of code flash across their monitor. But how realistic is that? YouTuber elsafrickey compiled clips from various movies made between 1970 and 2000, and the resulting supercut shows that while technology has changed over the years, the misrepresentation of hacking has remained consistent.
I won’t lie – I’ve made several girlfriends and one wife nuts from yelling at the TV screen, “That’s not how it’s done!”
In 1997, Congress introduced the Copyright Term Extension Act, which proposed to extend corporate copyrights again — this time, from 75 to 95 years. To ensure the bill passed, Disney cozied up to legislators.
Watchdog records show that the Disney Political Action Committee (PAC) paid out a total of $149,612 in direct campaign contributions to those considering the bill. Of the bill’s 25 sponsors (12 in the Senate, and 13 in the House), 19 received money from Disney’s CEO, Michael Eisner. In one instance, Eisner paid Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) $1,000 on the very same day that he signed on as a co-sponsor.
While it is impossible to say for certain whether or not Disney’s efforts directly impacted politics, the results heavily worked out in their favor: the bill quietly and unanimously passed in the House and Senate with no public hearings, no debate, no notice to the public, and no roll call.
On October 27, 1998, Mickey Mouse’s copyright was extended another 20 years, to 2023.
That’s only seven years away. We can look forward to Disney extending the Mickey Mouse copyright again and again with no public oversight or comment.
It’s that time of the year again—welcome to the Google Tracker! This is a bi-annual series where we recap every ongoing project (that we know about, at least) inside of Google’s sprawling empire.
The National Football League is planning to live-stream all three games scheduled to be played in London next season, and Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc subsidiary Google are among the technology companies in talks to buy the rights to conduct the streams, said two sources familiar with the situation.
This will be a big win for whoever gets the streaming rights. It’s interesting that the NFL deemed streaming this year with Yahoo a success, but Yahoo isn’t mentioned anywhere as being a contender for next year’s games.
Tech giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said on Friday its fourth-quarter operating profit likely rose 15 percent from a year earlier, missing expectations and fuelling concerns the tech industry may be in for a tough year of slack gadget sales.
Did you know that more than 180,000 of the items in our Digital Collections are in the public domain?
That means everyone has the freedom to enjoy and reuse these materials in almost limitless ways. The Library now makes it possible to download such items in the highest resolution available directly from the Digital Collections website.
