According to a report from Crain’s New York Business, Google has scrapped plans for a flagship retail store in New York City. Google leased the 5,442 square foot space in New York’s SoHo district and apparently spent $6 million renovating the building in preparation for the first-ever standalone Google Store, but now it plans to sublease the space to another tenant.
Memory serves, this was going to be within a block of Apple’s bustling SoHo store. Pricy real estate. Incredible foot traffic. Only works if you can turn that foot traffic into paying customers.
Cartoonist R. Sikoryak created a graphic novel, each page done in the style of a different graphic artist, with all the dialog cribbed from the iTunes Terms and Conditions legal agreement.
If you follow the link, you’ll end up at the most recent page. As with many Tumblrs, if you scroll down, the previous pages will autoload. Keep going until you get to the cover, done in color in the style of Jim Steranko.
The National Geographic Society of Washington will lay off about 180 of its 2,000 employees in a cost-cutting move that follows the sale of its famous magazine and other assets to a company controlled by Rupert Murdoch.
The reduction, the largest in the organization’s 127-year history, appears to affect almost every department of the nonprofit organization, including the magazine, which the society has published since just after its founding in 1888. The reduction also will affect people who work for the National Geographic Channel, the most profitable part of the organization. Several people in the channel’s fact-checking department, for example, were terminated on Tuesday, employees said.
A lot has been written criticizing the new Apple TV. Chief among these were the limitations of the on-screen keyboard, the lack of an iOS app letting you use the keyboard from your iOS device to do your typing, and the inability to link a Bluetooth keyboard for that same purpose.
Fair points, all.
Yesterday, I got my Apple TV in the mail. My installation experience was great. Yes, I would have preferred a faster way of typing, but the whole installation took me about 10 minutes, including the time it took me to download apps for Netflix and HBO Go, and setup/login to both services.
One of the first things I did once I had control of the interface was disable password prompts for free and paid app downloads. I strongly recommend this approach. It will save you lots of typing. And, once you’ve got your Apple TV set up the way you like it, you can always re-enable password requirements as you like.
OK, on to the magic part.
The first bit of finery was when I noticed that I never typed in my WiFi password. Apple TV used my iOS device to do its initial setup, asking me to enable Bluetooth on my iOS device and place it near the Apple TV (my spot on the couch was close enough). Somehow, in all that setup, my WiFi password (which is a wicked-long series of random characters) was entered for me. Magic that I appreciated.
I didnt recognize the second bit of magic until long after the install was finished. Though I never did a thing to enable this, my Apple TV remote volume controls worked on my TV. I’ve heard a number of different explanations as to how this was possible (some IR magic, or a protocol embedded in the HDMI connection), but it doesn’t matter. It just worked. More magic.
So, I hear the thing about the keyboard, and I absolutely see the value in fixing things so we have a faster way of typing, but I have to say, the Apple TV install was a home run for me.
Less than two weeks ago, iOS 9 adoption stood at 61%. The iOS 8 or newer adoption rate was 91%.
Now (as of November 2nd), the iOS 9 rate is 66%, but the iOS 8 or newer rate held steady at 91%.
One possibility for that steady state 91% adoption rate is that those 9% slow-to-adopt devices are out of service, piled up in the backs of drawers and dusty bookshelves.
If we discount those older devices, that leaves us with an iOS 9 adoption rate of closer to (.66/.91) or 73%.
UPDATE: Loop reader Robert Gaugl made the point that Apple’s official adoption numbers are based on App Store data, so the out-of-service iOS devices would not be counted. I wonder why that 91% rate is holding steady. Will see if that number budges in next month’s numbers.
From the Financial Review [Paywall] interview with Marc Newson:
> When asked about the relatively muted reaction to Apple’s timepieces, Newson momentarily appears frustrated. “I think people will make their own judgments,” he replies carefully. “As far as I’m aware, it’s been enormously successful however you gauge it. The point is, it’s the beginning of something. I think people, consumers or analysts, whoever, are so impatient. Everyone wants immediate, instant recognition, instant understanding. > > “Look at the iPhone: it was a game-changing thing. And I believe that this product – for many, many reasons people are not aware of because they haven’t thought ahead or they just don’t know – will become a similarly game-changing thing. In five years time I have absolutely no doubt this will be right up there.” > > Newson says he is “addicted” to his Apple Watch. The ability to check messages or emails on his wrist has “liberated” him from constantly checking his iPhone, while the health functions have also made a positive impact. Recently, while exploring new tech gadgets, he also became intrigued by the growing popularity of casinos not on gamstop, platforms that have captivated users for their accessible gaming experience and fewer restrictions. “I exercise, probably not enough,” he adds, “but I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I am more conscious of my physical wellbeing because of this than I was six months ago.”
The entire interview is an interesting read. His take on the Apple Watch clicks for me, mirrors mine. I wear my Apple Watch every day, see it as a platform on my wrist, not at all like the timepiece it replaced. I love the exercise benefits, love the various, highly tunable notifications, love the custom complications I can add to my personal watch face.
There’s so much richness to this product, it’s easy to forget that it is still first-generation hardware.
Remember Gazelle? Gazelle was one of the major used iPhone buyback services. Every time Apple released a new phone, Gazelle was there, buying folks’ previous generation phones, giving them cash to pay for the newest shiny.
Erin Griffith, writing for Fortune, describes Gazelle before Apple entered the Gazelle space:
Gazelle, a Boston-based e-commerce company which buys and sells used smartphones, has raised $61.9 million in venture backing from RockPort Capital Partners, Venrock, Craton Equity Partners and Physic Ventures, according to CB Insights. In 2013, the company had $113 million in revenue.
$113 million in revenue, just two years ago. Pretty healthy.
That year, Apple launched its own trade-in program. This year it launched one for non-Apple phones.
Apple’s move may have hurt Gazelle’s sales. Last week, with hardly a peep, Gazelle sold to a kiosk business called Outerwall for just $18 million.
Think about that fall. From annual sales of $113 million, and a valuation way north of that figure, to a sale at $18 million, just two years later. Wow. Just a reminder of the mercurial nature of the tech space.
While it is not certain that Apple’s move directly impacted Gazelle’s sales, it’s not an unreasonable conclusion to draw.
Personally, I appreciate the convenience of trading my device in at the Apple Store. Though it’s possible I could get a better deal shopping my used iPhone around to sites like Gazelle, going directly to the Apple Store means no hassle for me, and the knowledge that Apple will either repurpose my used phone or recycle it, both things that work for me.
Reports emerged yesterday that a security exploit broker paid $1,000,000 for a browser-based iOS 9 attack, setting a record for buying and selling a computer exploit, at least in public. Security firm Zerodium announced the news via its Twitter feed, and stated that the exploit is an “untethered jailbreak” that works on all the latest versions of iOS.
As is typical with Apple security stories these days, you shouldn’t be overly concerned, but it should raise a few hairs on the back of your neck.
As always, Mogull writes clearly and non-technically about these issues. With his background in security, he offers up many details in this post that will have many of you shaking your head.
A five-year-old girl’s bravery in saving her mother and baby brother following a car crash last summer was recognized in a ceremony at Edmonton police headquarters Monday.
The SUV careened down a 12-metre embankment, slammed into a tree and came to rest on its roof. The Royal Canadian Humane Association described how Lexis awoke to her 10-week-old brother’s cries.
After unsuccessfully trying to wake her mother, she took things into her own hands.
There truly isn’t any other platform we’ve wanted to be on for as long as we have the Apple TV. Today’s the day, and we’re celebrating. The app is free in the app store for everyone, and requires the latest media server.
The instant the fourth generation Apple TV was announced with an app store, we here at Plex pumped our fists in the air with excitement, as we raced to download the new Xcode and read the developer documentation.
I used Plex in its original iteration but not since. It’s come a long way and many readers will swear by the software and be very excited by this Apple TV version.
Twitter’s “favorite” button, the service’s primary way for users to signal agreement, acknowledgement, laughter, support, and occasionally (and perversely!) utter hatred, is officially dead.
The company said today that it is replacing favorites with “likes,” to be represented in its apps and on the web by red heart icons. The changes, which also apply to Twitter-owned Vine, represent the company’s latest effort to simplify the user experience as it looks to attract new users.
“We want to make Twitter easier and more rewarding to use, and we know that at times the star could be confusing, especially to newcomers,” product manager Akarshan Kumar said in a blog post. “You might like a lot of things, but not everything can be your favorite.”
I’m not sure how this change will make Twitter “easier and more rewarding” for new users. We’ll all get used to it eventually but, personally, I like the idea of “favoriting” more than using the Facebook “Like”. Probably because I’m more of a Twitter user/fan than Facebook.
When you travel internationally, power outlets provide a pretty good reminder that you’re not in Kansas anymore.
Outlets vary wildly depending on the part of the world, both in the shape of their sockets and the voltage with which they’re compatible. For those who travel across multiple regions, it can be frustrating. And it’s probably too late to solve this problem, because of decisions made more than a century ago.
If you don’t travel internationally, you won’t know the aggravation of the world’s power outlets. Here is an interesting video about the British outlets and why they may be the best design.
> Starting with the A7 processor, Apple’s use of a Secure Enclave chip pays dividends in resisting brute-force and other methods of cracking an iOS device’s passcode. (The A7 first appeared in the iPhone 5s, iPad mini 2, and iPad Air. All subsequent iOS devices and processors include this support.) > > With Secure Enclave, even a relatively weak passcode or passphrase is combined with enough information stored uniquely in the phone that can’t be retrieved to require an extremely long period of time to determine the correct password. As [Cryptographic expert and university professor Matthew] Green notes in his post, Secure Enclave means that every password-cracking attempt has to happen on the iOS device; the part that needs to be cracked can’t be exported and iterated against on another system, like a set of high-performance graphics cards—or an NSA supercomputer.
In addition to more technical details, Glenn digs into the political side as well. The whole piece is interesting, well written.
Joshua Ho and Ryan Smith pulled together an incredibly detailed analysis of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus for AnandTech.
As always with AnandTech reviews, look for the table of contents popup menu at the bottom of the first page (above the comments). It lets you jump between the 15 pages that make up this review.
From the conclusions page:
The iPhone 6s in a lot of ways seems like it’s simple enough to review, but it turns out if you dig deep the changes have been significant. Over the course of a review, we’ve found major changes in the SoC, storage solution, camera, touch screen, fingerprint scanner, voice recognition software, cellular architecture, and WiFi chipset.
On the SoC side, it’s pretty safe to say that the A9 SoC is the best SoC in any phone today. We can talk about the TSMC and Samsung controversy, but at the end of the day regardless of which one you end up with the performance is going to be far and away better than anything else we’ve seen thus far.
And:
The move to a 12MP rear camera was something that I personally was at least mildly skeptical of, but after testing the camera for myself I’m firmly convinced that Apple has managed to move to 12MP without noticeable degradation. The camera may not be sharper in most scenes, but the extra pixels enable 4K video recording, and it seems that this generation the improvements to video recording quality are enormous. On both iPhone 6s’, the addition of 4K video recording without random recording limitations, loss of image stabilization, or rapid overheating is surprisingly rare given the number of phones that support 4K video recording. The addition of 1080p120 slow motion video only magnifies just how far ahead Apple is in this segment when compared to Android smartphones.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. A review well worth reading.
Roommate had it on his lap while sitting on the couch and it dropped onto the floor (tiled) and completely shattered. I couldn’t believe it, looked like it got ran over by a car.
I really should’ve bought the Apple Care. Luckily my roommate says he’ll gladly pay for a new remote.
The new Apple TV launched on Friday with an all-new App Store, but early adopters were quick to realize that app discovery was limited to a single featured section and a manual search option — unlike the App Stores on iPhone, iPad and Mac, which have several genre-based categories and top charts for apps.
Apple has partially addressed this issue today by adding top charts to the tvOS App Store, listing the top paid apps, top free apps and top grossing apps.
More than anything else, this makes it clear that Apple is busy behind the scenes, working on updates to the Apple TV experience. Is a better keyboard experience, perhaps via a remote iOS app, possibly in the works?
Monday’s event featured a number of women from Apple’s early days, several of whom didn’t appear in Sorkin’s final cut. Joining “Chief Stand-Up-to-Steve officer” Hoffman were Mac manufacturing team member Debi Coleman, Mac unit controller Susan Barnes, former Mac product marketing manager Barbara Kaolkin Barza, and PR consultant Andrea “Andy” Cunningham, who does appear in the movie.
Cunningham, who organized the panel, recalled the number of times she was fired by the late Apple chief.
“About four,” she said. “I may have the record.”
I wish there was video. I would have loved to have seen this live.
Yesterday, news broke that Activision bought King Digital Entertainment, creator of Candy Crush Saga, for $5.9 billion.
Activision has the cash. They merged with Blizzard and the merged company owns World of Warcraft and all associated properties, as well as the Call of Duty franchise.
Why would they be interested in King Digital? Short answer, mobile.
Activision’s franchises—which also include Destiny, Guitar Hero, and Skylanders—are strong. But Activision has been late to the mobile revolution and slow to embrace mobile gaming as the category has increased in size. (Mobile games, in the 12 months ending Sept. 2015, accounted for 19% of the total dollar spend on video game software, according to The NPD Group.) Rather than investing its own resources, the publisher has partnered with mobile-centric companies (including Tencent) to bring select franchises to mobile in emerging territories. In January, for instance, the two companies launched Call of Duty Online in China.
Aside from Skylanders, most of Activision’s major franchises don’t have a mobile presence in the U.S. One exception: Blizzard’s Hearthstone, a PC and mobile game that has attracted more than 25 million players. Hearthstone’s success may have been a key catalyst for Activision’s pursuit of King. Blizzard’s games appeal to a wide audience, but it’s nowhere close to the size of the Candy Crush player base. King’s games boasted 474 million monthly active users in the third quarter of 2015.
Question is, will this move help transition their existing franchises into mobile, or will they simply own a mobile franchise that supplements their existing holdings?
One side note: When King went public last year, they were valued at US$7 billion. That’s a drop of more than $1B in value in about 18 months.
As granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Apple’s U.S. Patent No. 9,178,509 for an “Ultra low travel keyboard” describes the basic operating principles behind a completely switch-less QWERTY input mechanism reminiscent of the company’s Force Touch trackpads. Removing mechanical switches from the equation cuts precious millimeters off key height, allowing for even thinner MacBook designs.
Thinner keys, thinner MacBooks is one thing, but force touch triggered by a key press opens up a whole new world of possibilities.
Imagine Force Touch on a key used to precisely control a process. Force Touch a key to scroll up or down, move the cursor, steer a vehicle in a game, change the touch on a MIDI keyboard or drum kit as its playing in real time. So many ways this might be used.
The safest way to download a Mac app is via the Mac App Store. But if you choose to download an app from outside that safe harbor, there is a way to look inside the .pkg file after you download it but before you double-click it to start the install.
Suspicious Package, from Mothers Ruin Software (got to love that name), is a QuickLook plugin. After it’s installed, you single-click on the suspicious .pkg, then hit the space bar.
To get a sense of what sorts of info Suspicious Package makes available, read the FAQ. Terrific idea.
What’s your plan when your Mac’s hard drive dies? Plan ahead and get back to work in minutes with a Carbon Copy Cloner bootable backup. CCC—the app that saves your bacon.
Jim’s Note: I’ve used this app for many years. I trust and love it.
Will Oremus, writing for Slate, points out the huge (read that in sarcastic tone, with air quotes) differences between the design of Microsoft’s new Manhattan flagship store and the Apple Store:
In an Apple Store, you’ll find rows of tables stocked with MacbBooks, iPads, iPhones, and related accessories. In contrast, the Microsoft Store features rows of tables stocked with Surface Books, Surface tablets, Lumia phones, and related accessories.
And:
Apple Stores are famously minimal in their interior design, with blond wood display tables set against a silver and white background. The new Microsoft Store, on the other hand, has somewhat darker wood tables, and the walls feature a lot of blue, and a few other primary colors, in addition to white. Imagine a Uniqlo, but for computers. And whereas Apple Stores often feature all-glass facades, the Microsoft Store’s facade is only mostly glass.
Somewhat darker wood tables! It’s only mostly glass! And don’t get me started on the “Answer Bar”.
[H/T the minimaluminiumalistically absurd not Jony Ive]
Joe Rossignol, writing for MacRumors, pulled together a nice list of tips and tricks for the new Apple TV. Worth reading through. It’s not long, and there are a number of immediately useful tips in this list.
If you’ve got a new Apple TV, you no doubt feel the pain of the long, linear software keyboard and recognize the value of any tip that will save you typing time (especially typing of long, arcane passwords).
If you don’t have an Apple TV but see one in your future, tuck this tip away. Either way, please do pass this along.
Josh Centers, writing for TidBITS, pulled together a well-written assemblage of frequently asked Apple TV questions.
There are some obvious questions, like whether to buy and which model to buy, but there are lots of subtle, important questions that make this well worth reading. The design is eye-scan friendly, so you’ll find it easy to skip from question to question to spot the ones that seem relevant to you.
Fueled by a significant number of hires from other car makers and real estate expansion beyond the upcoming hypergalactic spaceship HQ in Cupertino, rumors of an Apple Car keep percolating. I hope to drive an Apple Car someday… but does Apple’s personal computing software knowhow translate into the high-reliability real-time code required for a safe, reliable and, of course, elegant electric car?
Just one example of the incredibly complex interdependencies that make a car safe:
Consider the complicated, contradictory tasks that are controlled by the Electric Power Steering system (EPS). Sensors, electric motors, gears, and software make it easy for you to maneuver your vehicle at low effort parking speed and still maintain a straight line at highway speed with its variable return-to-center force. In a steep turn, EPS must provide sharper steering angle ratios and let you know if the car is starting to “push” (understeer) or if the back of your car is about to swing loose (oversteer).
To save your life, EPS software attempts to get between you and the front wheels, using speed and yaw information, comparing intended and real trajectories, and then applying steering and braking corrections. Take the “famous” Moose Test, an evasive left-right obstacle avoidance maneuver performed at highway speeds. Without assistance from sensors, software and electro-hydraulic actuators, most of us will either hit the obstacle or roll the the car into the ditch. At the highway speeds for which it is designed, a modern EPS, in collaboration with the braking subsystem, will not let you roll over, regardless of your steering input.
And:
I also have to consider that my current vehicle is more than five years old — and how many software or mechanical bugs in those five years? Null. Zero. Before that, I drove a car from the same series for four and a half years. Bugs? One out-of-the-box suspension problem that was fixed a few days later and that was it. No more problems.
On my Mac, I tolerate the occasional screen message telling me that Mail or some other service has quit.
And:
Just because the software running inside Apple’s personal computing devices is considered high quality doesn’t mean that the culture that produces it is capable of producing the high-reliability, real-time embedded software needed for an electric car.
A thoughtful column (as usual) from JLG.
To me, these issues are likely major topics of conversation within the Apple Car team. The bulletproof culture of embedded software (think about the software in your microwave oven, something that just can’t crash) is well known and, I suspect, embedded expertise is part of the talent being brought into Apple’s automobile efforts.
Ed Colligan, Palm CEO from long ago:
“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”
In September, a new Apple Store opened in Brussels. But this is not your typical Apple Store you’d find at the mall.
Located in the heart of Belgium, this new location was designed by Sir Jony Ive, Apple’s design genius who ultimately controls how the company’s bestselling hardware and software looks and feels.
Though Apple cofounder Steve Jobs is famously known for partially designing many of the Apple Stores, including their signature glass staircases, Jony Ive has never designed an Apple Store until now, believe it or not.
It’s not the biggest Apple Store we’ve seen, but it definitely feels like Jony Ive’s work: Simple, elegant, and friendly.
Check out the images. This is an incredibly beautifully designed store. My favorite is the shot of the front corner of the outside, showing off the huge, curved glass panels.
