Truly the end of an era. Wonder what Ellison will turn his attention to now.

A nice set of images from Abdel Ibahim—it’s hard to argue with the logic.

Tim Higgins for Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s newest iPhones are fueling a surge in trade-ins of Android-based smartphones, threatening to loosen Samsung Electronics Co. (005930)’s grip on the large-screen smartphone segment as users switch allegiances.

When Apple’s main product, featuring bigger displays and faster chips, goes on sale starting in Australia, they may be best remembered as the generation of iPhones that won over consumers from rival smartphones. Trade-ins of Samsung phones with smartphone reseller Gazelle Inc. tripled last week and about a quarter of potential iPhone 6 buyers are new to Apple’s ecosystem, according to RBC.

It should be interesting to see Samsung’s next quarterly results.

I absolutely love 1Password and have beta tested the new version for quite a while. The new extensions work great—it’s a must have app.

Microsoft gave notice to 2,100 employees on Thursday, 747 of those in the Seattle area, a company spokesman said. That is in addition to 13,000 laid off in July, which means a further 2,900 are set to be laid off over the next nine months or so.

I hate seeing people lose their jobs, especially when it’s caused by executive mismanagement.

Storehouse is a visual storytelling app that was previously only available for iPad, but now an iPhone version has been released. I love this app.

Apple statement:

We discovered a bug that prevents us from making HealthKit apps available on iOS 8 today. We’re working quickly to have the bug fixed in a software update and have HealthKit apps available by the end of the month.

I’m sympathetic, but Apple should never have allowed this to happen. This isn’t good.

If you haven’t already, take a few minutes to step through Apple’s iOS 8 what’s new web site. Once you make your way through that main page, click on the icons at the top of the page to explore changes that came with Messages, Photos, etc., and topics like Continuity, Family Sharing, and QuickType.

iOS 8 is an incredibly rich upgrade. Stepping through these pages will give you a sense of the major new capabilities so you can take advantage of them.

When you upgrade to iOS 8, most of the options are ones you’ve seen with past upgrades. But one option, asking if you’d like to upgrade to iCloud Drive, is new, and the choice you make here matters.

When you upgrade to iOS 8, you need to ensure that you choose the right iCloud Drive option to ensure that Clear for iOS continues to sync with Clear for Mac (and any older devices that may use iCloud Documents and Data). If you upgrade to iCloud Drive, you will only be able to sync with devices running iOS 8 or OS X Yosemite. As OS X Yosemite is still pre-release (and not yet available) upgrading to iCloud Drive will prevent you from syncing with Clear for Mac until both OS X Yosemite is released and you upgrade to OS X Yosemite.

Bottom line, consider holding off on the upgrade if you store documents in iCloud, or use apps that do.

This is a beast of a review, lots to digest. To start things off:

“Huge for developers. Massive for everyone else.”

That was Apple’s tagline for iOS 8 when the software was announced at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference back in June. Overuse of hyperbole is a pet peeve of mine, but after using iOS 8 for a couple of months, I have to say that they’re warranted in this case. iOS 7 was a comprehensive makeover for an operating system that needed to reclaim visual focus and consistency. iOS 7.1 improved stability and speed while addressing the new design’s worst shortcomings and most egregious excesses. And iOS 8 is the update that turns its attention from the way everything looks to the way it works.

What’s huge for developers is the fact that Apple has opened up much of the OS for customization.

Apple still holds the keys to many aspects of the iPhone and iPad user experience, but compared to past versions of the software iOS 8 represents an opening of floodgates. Don’t like Apple’s software keyboard? Replace it. Want sports scores and updates on your eBay auctions in your Notification Center? Here’s a widget, throw ’em in there. Want to use a social network or a cloud storage service that Apple hasn’t explicitly blessed and baked into the OS? Cool. Here are some APIs for that.

As you make your way through the various reviews, keep in mind that the best of iOS 8 is yet to come. As developers wrap their heads around what’s possible, clever bits of code that leverage your iOS experience will start to emerge. That’s when the true value of iOS 8 will become apparent.

In a nutshell, you now have the ability to restrict an app from accessing your location data while running in the background.

Apple:

I want to be absolutely clear that we have never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services. We have also never allowed access to our servers. And we never will.

Our commitment to protecting your privacy comes from a deep respect for our customers. We know that your trust doesn’t come easy. That’s why we have and always will work as hard as we can to earn and keep it.

I await similar letters from every other company we trust with our data.

Last year Apple stripped iOS bare in order to redefine how we do things. This year they build atop everything that came before in order to redefine what we can do.

I always love reading Rene’s reviews.

A bug quietly reported on September 1 appears to have grave implications for Android users. Android Browser, the open source, WebKit-based browser that used to be part of the Android Open Source Platform (AOSP), has a flaw that enables malicious sites to inject JavaScript into other sites. Those malicious JavaScripts can in turn read cookies and password fields, submit forms, grab keyboard input, or do practically anything else.

I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

iOS 8 is, by any measure, a big update. A lot of it is refinement to last year’s drastic design overhaul, but there are also a lot of notable new features. Sitting amongst those refinements and big new features are little nuggets of delight in which Apple has designed or implemented something (whether it be a feature, design flourish or a shortcut) that you might not notice until one day you stumble upon it accidentally.

As usual, Federico Viticci, Graham Spencer and the crew at MacStories put together a great set of tips for the new iOS.

With Dan still out, Shawn fills in and talks to Jim about his iPhone 6 and 6 Plus review, where the Apple Watch will be sold and “is U2 the New Nickleback?”

Sponsored by MailChimp (Send 12,000 emails per month, to 2,000 subscribers, forever).

Fast Company:

The mobile version of Safari will now let you change the default search engine to DuckDuckGo, the privacy-obsessed Google alternative that has seen a sharp uptick in activity since Edward Snowden became a household name. By default, DuckDuckGo does not track its users’ search activity or even log their IP addresses.

Choice is always good and this is a pretty easy switch to make.

I love the apps that Cabel Sasser and the guys from Panic make. I’ve been using Transmit on my Mac for years and now there’s Transmit iOS.

With all of the ridiculous things being written about Apple giving away a U2 album, I thought it was time for a good laugh. I laughed at this.

Daniel Eran Dilger for AppleInsider:

Every new product Apple unveiled last week has ignited vocal, public derision from a series of threatened competitors, including Samsung, luxury watch maker LVMH and PayPal. However, their attempts to direct attention away from Apple may likely backfire, just like earlier attempts to demonize Siri, Maps, iCloud and Touch ID.

Fear is not a great motivator, but it’s one that can easily be spotted.

The Verge:

Over the last decade we all made an enormous effort to transform Macworld editorial from a magazine mentality to a web site mentality. And honestly, it worked: By the end, the magazine was essentially a curated collection of the best stories from the web site, cut down and copy edited and with nice photographs. The economics of the business just didn’t make it possible to continue.

The demise of print is a sad but understandable result of the age we live in. That being said, the demise of Macworld is sad in a completely different way.

Take a captivating ride through nearly 150 years of entertaining history and present-day story of the world’s largest family controlled brewer.

Instant Oscar winner!

Businessweek:

Almost everything else on Apple’s campus in Cupertino, Calif., is different. The executive wing once radiated nervous energy, with handlers scurrying to anticipate the whims of Apple’s temperamental co-founder. Now there’s tranquility in the hallways, a reflection of the new boss’s calm Southern demeanor. Downstairs, the cafeterias are packed—the workforce has almost doubled. A mile away, behind a ring of fences, construction crews are building the massive foundation for the circular “spaceship” campus that will accommodate 12,000 workers when it’s completed in a few years.

Until Sept. 9, all the other changes at the world’s most valuable and scrutinized company were largely invisible to the public. Then Tim Cook took the stage at the Flint Center for the Performing Arts and laid out much of what Apple has been working on over the past three years.

Along with the Charlie Rose videos, we are seeing more and more inside Cook’s world.

Wallet Hub put together a cell phone contract calculator, then used that calculator to analyze the cost of owning an iPhone 6 on various carriers, both with an without a contract.

If you find the numbers a little hard to understand, this article by CBS Money Watch’s Kathy Kristof does a nice job of explaining the implications.