NPR:

Berkeley Breathed has brought back his popular comic strip “Bloom County” after having retired it 25 years ago at the height of its popularity. At the time, “Bloom County” was published in over 1,200 newspapers. Anthologies that collected the strip were best-sellers.

I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. Along with The Far Side, Bloom County was one of my favorite comic strips. It’s latest iteration has lost none of the sweetness and world-weariness of the characters or the ever-so-gentle skewering of the world through Breathed’s eyes.

It doesn’t seem like a good sign when you have to launch a support account for your new music service, especially when you’re known around the world for ease of use.

Here’s a link to the new Paramount YouTube channel. Watch the trailer below for just a taste.

“Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?”

A few months ago, I reviewed Taptronome and Taptronome Pro, well made and easy to use metronome apps. Taptronome is free (ad supported) and Taptronome Pro is $2.99.

Well now the folks behind Taptronome have added an Apple Watch app to the mix, and it is just perfect. When I heard about the Apple Watch app, I couldn’t imagine how it could work. I was concerned about lag as the Apple Watch interface communicated to the phone and back again.

Silly me. The whole thing sits on my Apple Watch and there is zero lag at all. It just works. If you are a musician, go get this.

This is an incredibly long list but it is text-based and searchable. The data in this list is helpful if you are configuring a firewall or setting up an IP service.

Bookmark and pass along, especially to any IT friends. [Via Mac Kung Fu]

M.G. Siegler, in a reasonably short piece on his hands on experience with the iPhone 6s Plus:

A year ago, after going back-and-forth as to whether to get the iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus, this time around, with that year of usage under my belt, the decision seemed easy. I went with the iPhone 6s Plus. The rationale is simple: bigger battery. That continues to trump all for me.

Here’s Apple’s battery life projections for iPhone 6s / iPhone 6s Plus:

Talk time: 14 hours / 24 hours
HD Video playback: 11 hours / 14 hours
Audio playback: 50 hours / 80 hours
Standby time: 10 days / 16 days

As you can see, there’s a significant battery life bump when moving from the 6s to the 6s Plus.

I do still prefer the form factor of the smaller iPhone — it’s both easier to fit in your pocket and easier to use with one hand — but it’s definitely nice to have the larger screen if you do a lot of reading. The slightly better camera (optical image stabilization) continues not really to matter to me in practical usage. But still, another nice-to-have.

This is a big issue for me. My thinking is, optical image stabilization will mean better low light photos.

Anyway, the absolute key of the new device has feature parity across both sizes: 3D Touch. In my mind, this is easily the best new feature Apple has launched in quite some time in an “s” model of iPhone. And, as more developers implement it, I have a feeling I’m going to upgrade it to best new feature Apple has launched in quite some time, period.

Yup. And if you haven’t already, take a read of Allyson Kazmucha’s love letter to 3D Touch. Really brings home how important this feature is, and how you’ll actually use it.

I’ve not spent any real quality time with the 6s Plus, but that’s about to change. Mine is on its way!

Reuters:

Apple Inc could be facing up to $862 million in damages after a U.S. jury on Tuesday found the iPhone maker used technology owned by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s licensing arm without permission in chips found in many of its most popular devices.

The jury in Madison, Wisconsin also said the patent, which improves processor efficiency, was valid. The trial will now move on to determine how much Apple owes in damages.

And:

WARF sued Apple in January 2014 alleging infringement of its 1998 patent for improving chip efficiency.

The jury was considering whether Apple’s A7, A8 and A8X processors, found in the iPhone 5s, 6 and 6 Plus, as well as several versions of the iPad, violate the patent.

Moving on to damages phase. $862 million is quite a sum, even for Apple.

Bloomberg:

The U.S. Justice Department said it’s satisfied Apple Inc. put in place reforms to comply with antitrust laws even though it fought with a monitor appointed to oversee its sale of electronic books.

The government on Monday recommended that the monitoring not be extended. In a letter to the Manhattan federal judge who found in 2013 that Apple illegally conspired with publishers to set e-book prices, the U.S. said Apple has “now implemented meaningful antitrust policies, procedures, and training programs that were obviously lacking at the time Apple participated in and facilitated the horizontal price-fixing conspiracy found by this court.”

While Apple won’t be sad to see the monitor go, looking through other details of this story tells you the monitor will be – he was making a small fortune billing Apple for his court-mandated time.

Steven Levy:

There are many reasons why Apple is the world’s most valuable company. Tim Cook is celebrated as a supply chain Maester who has internalized the focus on innovation that his predecessor inculcated in the culture. Jony Ive has drawn global raves for making Apple a design icon. Its marketing and branding practices set industry standards. But a visit to the lab where its legacy products — computers — are made suggests another reason.

Sweating the details.

Levy was given inside access to the iMac team while they developed the new machines and, as usual, his writing on the topic is fascinating.

David Chartier, writing for Finer Things in Tech:

Apple tells you a number of things that iCloud syncs between devices in Settings (or System Preferences) > iCloud, such as Photos, Contacts, and Reminders. But I’ve noticed a number of other OS-level things that sync between my devices (presumably through iCloud), but Apple doesn’t seem to keep a central, comprehensive list. Let’s make one.

Read the list, learn about the stuff that’s shared between devices. Good list. And if you notice anything that should be on this list, be sure to let David know.

Allyson Kazmucha, writing for The App Factor, lays out six specific uses for 3D Touch on the iPhone 6s that make a world of difference. This is a solid list, well described, and worth reading if you have a new iPhone 6s or 6s Plus or are considering a purchase.

Matt Galligan, writing for Medium, on Facebook being the primary point of battery drain on his brand new iPhone 6s Plus. With pictures and detail.

If you disable background refresh for an app, there’s no excuse for it continuing to be the main cause of battery drain.

An interesting bit of internet history, this email from Marc Andreessen, while he was working on Mosaic and before the birth of Netscape, proposes the creation of a core element of HTML, the IMG tag.

As you can tell from this post, I tend toward the minimalist/utilitarian, but if you like photos on your Apple Watch, this iDownloadBlog post is worth checking out.

A while back, I started a master list of Safari content blockers (at least the ones I found). Over the weekend, Carlos Oliveira and I banged around a few ideas and Carlos edited the list, adding 2 codes to each entry.

One code indicates whether a content blocker is free, the second code indicates whether the content blocker supports an editable white list (turn off blocking for specific sites).

Please take a look at the list, ping me if you spot any errors or missing blockers. The link remains the same.

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.

Jean-Louis Gassée was a part of Apple in the early days of Macintosh, first as head of Apple France, then in Cupertino as Macintosh Marketing Director. A witness to the end of Steve Jobs’ first days at Apple.

In today’s Monday Note, Jean-Louis penned a beautiful remembrance of the anniversary of Steve’s passing, combined with some insightful thoughts on what Apple has become, is becoming:

So far, Apple has been viewed and valued by Wall Street as a kind of Hollywood studio: It’s too dependent on its next hit – or miss. Hence, for the same amount of profit, Apple gets a lower valuation than Google or Amazon. These companies are said to have built a “moat” around their business, they collect, in Horace Dediu’s words, “monopoly rents” from their well-protected businesses, just like Microsoft once did with its Windows-Office franchise. No such fortress for Apple – or so says the current lore. But, if you read Apple’s words, carefully vetted by attorneys and accountants, a fortress is precisely what the company is building with a functional organization singularly focused on its ecosystem.

Here’s a link. As usual with Jean-Louis, a thoughtful read.

There’s been a lot of press the past few days about Elon Musk and some pointed barbs he threw Apple’s way. This CNET piece did a good job pulling all these together.

So it is, perhaps, with an interview in which Tesla CEO Elon Musk gave to Germany’s Handelsblatt. In it, he suggested — jokingly?– that the Cupertino, California, tech titan hires Tesla’s engineering castoffs.

“Did you ever take a look at the Apple Watch? No, seriously,” he said of Apple’s alleged foray into cars. “It’s good that Apple is moving and investing in this direction. But cars are very complex compared to phones or smartwatches.”

And:

“Yo, I don’t hate Apple,” he first tweeted. “It’s a great company with a lot of talented people. I love their products and I’m glad they’re doing an EV.”

And:

Musk followed up with another tweet addressing his views on the Watch. “Regarding the watch, Jony & his team created a beautiful design, but the functionality isn’t compelling yet. By version 3, it will be.”

It’s this last bit that I truly take issue with. I do indeed find the current incarnation of Apple Watch compelling. As is, today.

Take a look at this screenshot:

This is my current Apple Watch setup. It shows me the time, day, and date at the top. At the bottom, it shows the current outside temperature, any alarms (none were set when I took this), and remaining battery. In the middle is my Fantastical calendar complication, showing the next event on my calendar (Jim is adamant that his cooler always remain topped off. For emergencies.)

All of this functionality is rendered in a font that is large enough and clear enough for my aging eyes to see with no problem. And with watchOS 2, I have an incredible array of 3rd party complications from which to choose to customize my experience.

My watch looks good in the gym, in a business meeting, out at dinner, no matter how casual or fancy.

With the flip of a wrist and, perhaps, a tap or two, I can interact with Siri, control my music, set an alarm or timer, browse my email, send and receive texts, talk on the phone, and so much more.

The “functionality isn’t compelling yet”? To me, the Apple Watch is a remarkable piece of work, a miracle of design and technological prowess. We must have a different definition of compelling.

Vice:

There is nothing like the Purina Pro Plan Incredible Dog Challenge. Nowhere else in the nation are the six most popular canine contests—the Agility, the Diving Dog, the 30 Weave Up & Back, the Fetch It!, the Freestyle Flying Disc, and the Jack Russell Hurdle Race—crammed into one Olympic-style event.

The animals are referred to as “athletes” without even a hint of irony, and, for their part, they earn this honor. The agility course requires speed, endurance, execution, and, most important, an almost unfathomable level of obedience.

This is rarely on TV but, when it is, I love watching it. It may be “goofy” but the training and commitment of both the dogs and their handlers is fantastic. I’ll admit to loving the Jack Russell Terriers crash into barriers a little too much and I’ve always wished I had a dog I could play Frisbee with.

Steve Cheney:

One of Steve Jobs’ biggest legacies was his decision to stop relying on 3rd party semiconductor companies and create an internal silicon design team.3 I would go so far as to argue it’s one of the three most important strategic decisions he ever made.

If you study unit economics of semiconductors, it doesn’t really make sense to design chips and compete with companies like Intel unless you can make it up in volume. Consider the audacity back in 2007 for Apple to believe it could pull this off. How would they ever make back the R&D to build out a team and pay for expensive silicon designs over the long run, never mind design comparative performing chips? Well today we know. Apple makes nearly 100% of the profit in the entire smartphone space.

It is – in fact – these chip making capabilities, which Jobs brought in-house shortly after the launch of the original iPhone, that have helped Apple create a massive moat between itself and an entire industry.

I don’t think Apple’s advantage is as insurmountable as Cheney states but it is remarkable Apple is in this position. It’s a sense of mission and dedication and truly amazing foresight from the company that, for those of us long time Apple watchers, we could never have predicted 10 years ago.

BBC:

When was the last time you were well and truly lost? Chances are it’s been a while.

Extraordinary gadgets like smartphones and satnavs let us pinpoint our location unerringly. Like the people in Downton Abbey, we all know our place. However, the technology which delivers the world into the palms of our hands may be ushering in a kind of social immobility undreamt of even by Julian Fellowes’s hidebound little Englanders.

Discovery used to mean going out and coming across stuff – now it seems to mean turning inwards and gazing at screens. We’ve become reliant on machines to help us get around, so much so that it’s changing the way we behave, particularly among younger people who have no experience of a time before GPS.

I’m famous for having absolutely zero sense of direction. Even with GPS, I get lost all the time. But I’m OK with that. As a matter of fact, I use my GPS to get lost. I’ll set it for home and then go out riding my motorcycle. Whenever the GPS tells me to go in a certain direction to go back home, I go in the other direction. I’ve explored thousands of miles in the US and Canada like this and have found some wonderful places that I otherwise would have never come across.

Griot:

Sometimes photographs deceive. Take this one, for example. It represents John Carlos and Tommie Smith’s rebellious gesture the day they won medals for the 200 meters at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, and it certainly deceived me for a long time.

I always saw the photo as a powerful image of two barefoot black men, with their heads bowed, their black-gloved fists in the air while the US National Anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” played. It was a strong symbolic gesture – taking a stand for African American civil rights in a year of tragedies that included the death of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.

It’s a historic photo of two men of color. For this reason I never really paid attention to the other man, white, like me, motionless on the second step of the medal podium. I considered him a random presence, an extra in Carlos and Smith’s moment, or a kind of intruder. Actually, I even thought that that guy – who seemed to be just a simpering Englishman – represented, in his icy immobility, the will to resist the change that Smith and Carlos were invoking in their silent protest. But I was wrong.

It’s a powerful photograph and I, like so many others, made assumptions about the third participant. The back story is fascinating but the tale of what happened to him afterward is heartbreaking.

Boston Globe:

The Obama administration has backed down in its bitter dispute with Silicon Valley over the encryption of data on iPhones and other digital devices, concluding that it is not possible to give US law enforcement and intelligence agencies access to that information without creating an opening that China, Russia, cybercriminals, and terrorists could also exploit.

With its decision, which angered the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, the administration essentially agreed with Apple, Google, Microsoft, and a group of the nation’s top cryptographers and computer scientists.

The administration also agreed with common sense. But make no mistake, this decision came about because of pushback lead by Apple, among others, and more importantly, the administration listening to and trusting the tech companies when they were told this couldn’t be done the way the government wanted it done.

John Gruber highlights Marco Arment’s novel patronage based revenue model for Overcast 2.

Remind me again, why doesn’t the App Store support trial versions?