First things first, here’s a link to the live stream of the event, which will start later today at 10 a.m. PDT.
According to the site:
Live streaming video requires Safari 5.1.10 or later on OS X v10.6.8 or later; Safari on iOS 6.0 or later. Streaming via Apple TV requires second- or third-generation Apple TV with software 6.2 or later.
As Tim Cook told a London Apple Store sales staff: “We’ve never sold anything as a company that people could try on before.”
Well, sort of, but point taken. This is a new path for Apple, stretching the bounds of their take on technology, reaching into the world of fashion.
Pebble kickstarts aside, smart watches have not sold well. But perhaps that’s because they’ve not been done well. We’ll soon find out if there’s a market out there. My money’s on Apple making this market, as they’ve done with the iPod, iPhone, and iPad.
Here’s video of the first test run of #Fury325 at Carowinds from a riders point of view! The coaster was tested late Wednesday afternoon, March 4. Debuting this spring, Fury 325 will be the world’s tallest & fastest giga coaster. The thrill ride stands 325 feet tall with an 81-degree initial drop and reaches breathtaking speeds of 95 miles per hour.
Susan Kare is the artist responsible for many of the classic Mac icons that are universally recognized. Now her impact as a pioneering and influential computer iconographer has been recognized by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Susan Kare designed all of her early icons on graph paper, with one square representing each pixel. Now this archive of sketches has been acquired by MoMA, jointly with San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art, and has gone on show as part of a new exhibition, This is for Everyone: Design Experiments For The Common Good.
We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to Kare for her lovely and elegant icon designs.
Apple’s patent application is for a method that allows them to make 18k gold that has, on a volume basis, less gold than regular 18k gold.
How can this be? It’s because Apple’s gold is a metal matrix composite, not a standard alloy. Instead of mixing the gold with silver, copper, or other metals to make it harder, Apple is mixing it with low-density ceramic particles. The ceramic makes Apple’s gold harder and more scratch-resistant—which Tim Cook touted during the September announcement—and it also makes it less dense overall.
The media is going to have a field day with this. They’ll get it wrong but they’ll still lose their collective minds over it.
M.G. Siegler, as part of his 500 Words series for Medium:
Assuming Learmonth’s sources are correct, HBO is just tying up loose ends (read: Apple) at this point to launch the new service alongside the premiere of season five of Game of Thrones in April.
Yes, there has to be some concern for HBO launching such a service during what will undoubtedly be peak demand — after all, they shit the bed last year during the exact same time with HBO Go — but with MLB by their side to help them this time, we should be good to go.
Will HBO Now catch on, develop the traction it needs to achieve critical mass, to legitimize the à la carte content model?
Based on how this new service fares for HBO, we should see many others fall in line to do the same thing. And given that I fully suspect this will be a massive success for the company, we could see a domino effect quicker than many imagined was possible.
When ESPN tips and goes straight to their users: watch out.
It’s not so much the cord-cutters that Big Cable has to worry about, it’s the upcoming millions of cord-nevers — kids who head off to college or their first jobs and don’t feel like cable television is worth the cost. I would bet on a huge percentage of those kids signing up for HBO Now to go with their Netflix accounts.
On Apple TV:
The current Apple TV has a nice chunk of content, but Apple needs to make it a no-brainer for consumers to go with their offering. That means getting all (or at least most) of the content currently offered on television. Up until now, that has seemingly meant working with the cable providers. But if the aforementioned domino effect happens, Apple could have a much easier time getting what they want (whether that’s dealing with networks directly or using them as leverage to bend the cable operators to their will — we’ll see).
Couldn’t agree more. This is a shrewd partnership for Apple and could be the discriminator that breathes life into Apple TV sales.
Eric Migicovsky is a smart watch pioneer. His new Pebble Time kickstarter has raised over $16 million and Pebble has sold more than a million watches. He has a rare voice of experience and insight into what Android Wear has done and what Apple brings to the market.
Barron’s interview with Migicovsky is an interesting read. A few excerpts:
Notifications are fun and useful and wonderful, but it’s not the only part of the future. The real thing is, the number one reason, is to tell the time. When you look down at your wrist, you have to be able to see what time it is. But more important, what’s the context around time? Am I late? Am I early? What’s the traffic like?
On Pebble’s pins in a timeline interface:
What is important is not the app but the content of the app. If you overlay it on top of time, everything clicks. You see these pins on your timeline, and you could have 20 different ones, but it won’t be complicated.
ESPN is taking the idea of the current engine, where you follow teams that you like. They are putting that into the past, present and future organization. So, you have a single pin from a provider like ESPN that in future, exists as a heads-up of when a game starts. In the present, that pin traverses time and becomes a real-time score keeper. In the past, that exists as a record keeper. It’s time-based context.
On Android Wear and the slow moving smart watch market:
We have a million users, the biggest smartwatch population. Android Wear, I don’t think anyone ever respected them. They didn’t have any new ideas. I like their voice responses, though. We looked at that. The benefit we have are passionate users that care. Looking at the competition, it’s crazy that we launched three years ago and it’s taken people this long to launch their first.
On sales:
The only one that has a chance of selling a lot is Apple Watch. If you look at the numbers from [research firm] NPD for the holiday quarter, Pebble outsold everyone else including Samsung. We were twice the volume of Motorola [360] in terms of units. All the other ones are smaller footnotes at the bottom. It’s cheap to make a watch but they don’t actually get sold.
And on taking on Apple:
I think Apple is a massive competitor. They are Apple, and there’s no reason to underestimate the power they have. We are specifically doing things Apple can’t do, like having a battery life of 10 days, like having this new interface, being waterproof, working with both [Google’s] Android and with iOS.
Good stuff. I think Migicovsky has Pebble right where it needs to be, a real sweet spot in the market.
A few days ago, a 72-year old man who went by the names Indiana Jones and, more recently, Han Solo, crashed his vintage World War II-era Ryan PT-22 Recruit open cockpit plane, making a hard landing on a Los Angeles golf course (likely in an attempt to travel back in time).
Thankfully, Harrison Ford is on the mend (as a friend said, not sure I could stand losing Spock and Jones/Solo in the same week), but here’s a picture of the plane, sitting on its belly after the crash.
For years, Oracle has tormented Windows users by bundling adware with its Java installer for Windows PCs. Now Oracle has begun including the same adware as part of a default installation of Java for the Mac, using the same deceptive techniques.
More sleazy business practices for you and yours to be made aware of. Thanks to Rob Griffiths for the heads up.
Kirk McElhearn wrote up his take on the pricing of the Apple Watch line here.
The Apple Watch Edition is not a luxury watch; it’s just a gold-cased version of the cheaper watch. There’s nothing exclusive about it, nothing special. It’s not like more expensive watches where you pay for complex machinery. Yes, there is gold; that will make it more expensive than the other models. But not that much. Estimates of the cost of the gold suggest that the metal would cost less than $1,000.
As such, I think the list price for the base model Apple Watch Edition will be $1,999. There will certainly be a price differential by size, and it could be a couple hundred dollars for this version. In addition, the watchbands will cost as much as several hundred dollars. There’s just no reason to pay more. I repeat, this is not a luxury watch; this is a smartwatch with a gold case.
The consensus seems to be that the high end iPhone 6 costs about $247 to make, including parts and labor. Without a contract, that same iPhone 6 sells for $849. That’s a price/cost ratio of about 3.44 (the price of the phone is a bit more than 3 times the cost).
Apply that same model to the Apple Watch, and you get a price ranging from $3,400 to $6,800.
The terms of the bet? Kirk wins if the price of the highest end Apple Watch Edition is US$2500 or less. One penny more than that and I win.
The stakes? If I win, Kirk sends me a large packet of digestive biscuits from the UK. If he wins, I send him this.
For the purposes of Gatekeeper, Apple verifies the identity of the developer, but not their intent. It’s up to you to ensure that the applications you install and run on your Mac come from the people you think they came from, and we’ll show you how to do that.
The key words are, “it’s up to you” to not let your guard down and to always be aware of what you are downloading and installing. Apple is doing their part and it’s up to the user to do theirs.
Apple will replace AT&T in the Dow — an exclusive club of 30 stocks that also includes tech giants Microsoft, Intel, and Cisco as well as brand-name consumer firms Walmart, Coca-Cola, and Disney.
“As the largest corporation in the world and a leader in technology. Apple is the clear choice for the Dow Jones Industrial Average,” said David Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, in a statement.
Apple will enter the Dow at the close of trading on March 18.
As tha article says, this is mostly symbolic but, for a company on the edge of bankruptcy less than 20 years ago, it’s a remarkable journey.
This may just ruin your weekend. Load the page, check and uncheck to winnow the available content (no cartoons or commercials, for example), then hit the Power button. Sit back in your bellbottoms, open up a Tab, cross your hushpuppies, and enjoy.
I think these are pretty nice looking, elegant without complexity. Each sample features a Live Demo button so you can see the site in action. And, if you are of a mind, you can view the page source of each demo to get an idea of how it was put together.
Each template is 100% free under the creative commons attribution license (attribution, in this case, means give html5up the credit they deserve).
Austin Mann was in Dallas to watch one of his photographs being hung on the side of a building.
I couldn’t be more proud to announce I’m part of Apple’s new Shot on iPhone, World Gallery campaign! They’ve selected a collection of images from photographers and every day iPhone users around the world and are plastering them on buildings, billboards, bus transits and more.
Three of my pieces were selected, two photos and one time-lapse! It’s super surreal looking up on the side of the building in Dallas and realizing I shot this picture!
The above video shows a bit of the process of capturing the transformation of this building into a big piece of waterfall art (and also a few tips about how I captured the time-lapse.)
Jump to the page and watch the video. You’ll watch the process of taking down an existing ad, see a time lapse of the new piece being hung, and get a really nice tip on shooting a panorama. All of this was done using an iPhone 6 (of course!)
Financial Times’ columnist Nick Foulkes had the chance to sit down with Sir Jony Ive just a few days before Monday’s big Spring Forward event, an event presumably designed to pull the curtain back on the missing details of the Apple Watch.
This is a reasonably long piece, so there’s a lot to digest. I found the piece incredibly well written, but with a tone that suggests an outsider’s voice, someone familiar with technology and gadgets, but without that intimate knowledge of Apple’s history. But rather than being off-putting, this gave the article a certain charm. Well worth the read.
Some details:
When asked how many Apple Watches the company will sell, he answers: “I’m much more concerned about how we can make them as good as possible than how many we’ll sell. We’re brutally self-critical and go through countless iterations of each product.”
And:
When the issue of the frequent need to recharge the iPhone is raised, he answers that it’s because it’s so light and thin that we use it so much and therefore deplete the battery. With a bigger battery it would be heavier, more cumbersome, less “compelling”.
And:
“One of the things that struck me,” says Ive, “was how often I’d look at my watch and have to look again quite soon afterwards, because I hadn’t actually comprehended what the time was. If I had looked at something on my phone, because of the investment involved in taking it out of my pocket or my bag, I would certainly pay attention. I quite like this sense of almost being careless and just glancing. I think for certain things the wrist is the perfect place for this technology.”
He runs through the three ranges of Apple Watch with their different materials – the stainless-steel Apple Watch, the anodised-aluminium Apple Watch Sport (both from $349) and the Apple Watch Edition in 18ct yellow or rose gold (with an as yet unconfirmed price of around $4,500) – and almost infinite combinations of colours and aesthetics.
About two weeks ago, I did my own little pricing exercise and came up with a range of $3,400 to $6,800 for the high end model. Even if the $4,500 price for the high end model is wrong, it does fit squarely in that range. Hopefully, we’ll hear more about this on Monday.
A street photography project to document world’s humanity in one single day. World wide participants will share their city stories through one photo per hour during 24 hours.
In February 2015, I traveled far north to Norway to hunt down and photograph the Northern Lights, one of the most mesmerizing natural phenomena of this planet.
Apple received the highest score for loyalty of any brand cited across all categories. What explains Apple’s unrivaled loyalty in China? Yes, the products are attractive. Yes, the price point is high enough that the iPhone is a status symbol that is more accessible than a diamond-studded watch or flashy sports car.
AltConf is a free, community-driven and supported event, held in downtown San Francisco alongside Apple’s WWDC. We’re currently planning the 2015 conference, and we’ve got some very exciting plans in the works that we’re hoping that we can announce very soon.
Mike and Judy do a tremendous job with AltConf. If you’re interested in speaking or wish to support the conference, be sure to get in touch with them.
People hate him. Boy, wow, do they hate him. At first they loved him, and then they were confused by him, and then they were irritated by him, and now they straight-up loathe.
I’m definitely in the “loathe” camp. I’ve loathed him since way back in his days in Seattle. But it’s still an interesting, well written (and well presented on the web site) article. And, after reading it, I still loathe him.
The contest is held in association with the Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous festival, but Takhini Hot Pools owner Andrew Umbrich says he runs the contest the entire month of February to account for unpredictable temperatures.
He says -20C works for hair sculpting, but -30C is ideal.
“It just takes 10 minutes to a half hour to make a pretty incredible picture,” he says.
This is a cleverly designed site that allows you to mix and match various Apple Watch bodies with different straps. Fun few minutes diversion. What’s your favourite look?
HBO made it clear that it didn’t care if friends and family were sharing logins, just as long as they were getting hooked on the shows. (I’ll admit, I have a friends login right now that I’m using.) The current problem with it, is that when there is a big season premier or finale – HBO Go dies. It’s unusable. Too many people have given their logins out and millions of unanticipated customers are using the service. When the True Detective season finale premiered on a Sunday evening last year, the HBO Go app was riddled with server errors and the Apple TV app just out-right wouldn’t load. Paying customers who were not home and wanted to watch it were out-of-luck until the following day. And now HBO wants to open up access to millions more.
The price barrier that HBO Now will introduce will help them with traffic, but I think more people than they are anticipating are going to pay and this service has to be rock solid.
Totally agree. If HBO is going to step out on their own, they need to ensure that their delivery vehicle is up to the task. Right now, their customer experience is purely based on the quality of their content. Once someone pays for HBO Now, HBO has to deliver rock solid streaming, regardless of the load on the system.
Yesterday, I posted about the Impossibility domain name generator. In a somewhat similar startup vein, Withoomph takes a business name and a set of keywords and gens up a set of logos for your consideration. The suggestions are free, and I find them great food for thought.
If any of the logos hit the mark, you can buy screen and print resolution versions from the site. You can also hire them to do custom work.
A nice little treasure trove of Mac tips, all of them making use of the option key. As always, you may know most of these, but take a look, there might be a gem in here that’s new to you.
My favorite:
When you copy a file in your Mac’s Finder and go to Paste it, this will create a copy of the original file. There’s no way to “Cut” a file before pasting it to move it, as there is on Windows and Linux.
Instead, when you want to move a file, copy it normally. Next, go to the folder you want to move it to, right-click (or Control-click), and hold Option when the context menu appears. The normal “Paste Item” menu item will become “Move Item Here.”
This works for many other menu items, too. “Get Info” becomes” Show Inspector.” “Arrange By” becomes “Sort By.” “Open in New Tab” becomes “Open in New Window.” “Quick Look” becomes “Slideshow.” “Open With” becomes “Always Open With.”
HBO is in talks with Apple to make Apple TV one of the launch partners for its highly anticipated streaming service when it debuts next month. HBO and streaming partner Major League Baseball Advanced Media are working to have the standalone service, called “HBO Now,” ready to launch in April in conjunction with the premiere of the fifth season of “Game of Thrones,” according to sources familiar with their plans.
When it launches, consumers will be able to subscribe to HBO Now directly from HBO for the first time, rather than through a cable, satellite or telco TV distributor such as Comcast or Verizon. The retail price is expected to be $15 a month when purchased directly from HBO, or about what consumers pay when they order HBO through their cable, satellite or telco provider.
An important part of net neutrality: The cable companies can’t slow down HBO Now packets in an attempt to steer you to their own HBO packaged service.
Samsung lawyer Kathleen Sullivan of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP said the South Korean company had all but stopped using the patents, so no injunction was needed.
Wait, I thought Samsung said it didn’t infringe on Apple’s patents. Now they’re saying they did infringe, but they sort of stopped. This company is crazypants crazy.
