It now costs 1.6 cents to produce each US one cent coin due to the high price of zinc, which makes up 97% of each coin, according to the Wall Street Journal. President Obama has proposed phasing out pennies and nickels (5-cent pieces) on numerous occasions, including in the 2015 budget, but Congress has yet to bite.
It’s one of those things we all know but inertia seems to keep America from getting rid of this useless coin.
The space shuttle Enterprise has been ensconced aboard the USS Intrepid for just over two years. It sits in a silent warehouse, dramatically lit so it appears to be cruising in a dark vacuum. Tourists can wander around or under it at the exhibit; they can even walk up some stairs and get nose-to-nose with the Enterprise, staring down its long axis through a thick layer of glass.
While the whole thing evokes space exploration, the Enterprise has never actually made it out of Earth’s atmosphere.
I saw the Enterprise at The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution years ago and, even though I’m not a Star Trek geek, I was sad a ship named “Enterprise” never made it into space.
Text can be beautiful, simple, wild, engaging, exciting and a wide number of other things. It can stir emotion and helps users understand your message. Type can be a wide number of things but one thing is common – it must be readable.
I hate going to a Web site and struggling to read the text. Sometimes trying to be cute just makes the site unreadable.
With lead single “The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)” set to be featured in a massive media campaign from Apple, valued at $100 million by multiple sources, U2 has already scored arguably the biggest launch in music history. And it’s one that’s already fraught with a little controversy, from angry retailers to Grammy and SoundScan guidelines.
Oseary (U2’s manager) rang Billboard on Sept. 11 to address the many questions about the launch, and what’s next (another album?) from this landmark deal with Apple.
For a band that many (not me) consider to be irrelevant to today’s music, this campaign is a concerted effort to market and reinvent what was once called “The World’s Greatest Band”.
If you would like U2’s Songs of Innocence removed from your iTunes music library and iTunes purchases, you can choose to have it removed. Once the album has been removed from your account, it will no longer be available for you to redownload as a previous purchase. If you later decide you want the album, you will need to get it again. The album is free to everyone until October 13, 2014 and will be available for purchase after that date.
This is a story I wrote for Fortune about Apple’s iTunes Festival London. There are some interesting tidbits in here that haven’t been published before.
Ever since the announcement, I’ve been wrestling with which new iPhone to buy. I’m at the end of my existing contract, and I’ve already got the funds set aside. The question is purely one of size. I dug through Apple’s site, trying to find an image comparing the iPhone 5 to the newer models.
The main iPhone 6 page does a nice job of comparing the two new phones, but doesn’t really give you a true sense of how they’d feel compared to my existing iPhone 5 experience.
The compare page does put all the phones next to each other, but it stacks them, hiding the width of each model. And the full width pictures further down the page are scaled, so they are not actual size.
So I took matters into my own hands. I grabbed the phone drawings from the compare page and popped into Photoshop, scaling them and sketching them closer together, until I ended up with an image that showed the 6 Plus, the 6, and the 5, all actual size and nicely adjacent. There’s no overlap, so you can print the page, then cut out each phone, see if it fits in your favorite pocket.
Be sure to view it at 100% (for obvious reasons) and make sure your printer does not scale the image when it prints. Feel free to use this image as you like, consider it as public domain as it can be, given that it was created from images from Apple’s site.
UPDATE: David Harrison points out Apple iPhone 6 display page, another very useful page for comparing your existing experience with that of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Scroll about halfway down the page and pick two iPhone models to compare.
Available across multiple platforms, “Minecraft” is one of the most popular video games in history, with more than 100 million downloads, on PC alone, by players since its launch in 2009. “Minecraft” is one of the top PC games of all time, the most popular online game on Xbox, and the top paid app for iOS and Android in the US. The “Minecraft” community is among the most active and passionate in the industry, with more than 2 billion hours played on Xbox 360 alone in the past two years. Minecraft fans are loyal, with nearly 90 percent of paid customers on the PC having signed in within the past 12 months.
Apple® today announced a record number of first day pre-orders of iPhone® 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, the biggest advancements in iPhone history, with over four million in the first 24 hours. Demand for the new iPhones exceeds the initial pre-order supply and while a significant amount will be delivered to customers beginning on Friday and throughout September, many iPhone pre-orders are scheduled to be delivered in October. Additional supply of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will be available to walk-in customers on Friday, September 19 at 8:00 a.m. local time at Apple retail stores.
New York Times blogger Brian X. Chen asked Tim Cook about the Apple Watch and battery life. Tim’s reply:
“I don’t think we skipped over it. I addressed it in the presentation myself. We think that based on our experience of wearing these that the usage of them will be really significant throughout the day. So we think you’ll want to charge them every night, similar to what a lot of people do with their phone.”
Charging is done via induction and requires a special cable. If life between charges is long enough (say, at least 24 hours), that shouldn’t be an issue. No doubt, someone will create a brick capable of charging both your phone and watch about the size of existing iPhone/iPad charging bricks. Keep one in your backpack or your pocket and you’ll always have a charging solution.
Charging at night seems about right. I don’t think it is reasonable to have the same expectation for Apple Watch battery life as I do for my wristwatch. This is a new type of device, more functionally aligned with my phone than with my simple watch.
Charging my Watch at night is no different to me than charging my computer or my iPhone. There is the added strain on the power grid that this brings, but that’s a different story altogether.
This past June, as part of his WWDC keynote, Apple VP Craig Federighi introduced HealthKit. Last week, Apple put out this press release, announcing that iOS 8, which includes HealthKit, would officially be available on September 17th. From the release:
The new Health app gathers the information you choose from your various health apps and fitness devices, and provides you with a clear and current overview in one place. HealthKit APIs offer developers the ability for health and fitness apps to communicate with each other. With your permission, each app can use specific information from other apps to provide a more comprehensive way to manage your health and fitness. Users will be able to gather and monitor their own fitness metrics using apps such as MyFitnessPal, RunKeeper and Strava. Healthcare providers can now monitor the data their patients choose to share through apps such as Mayo Clinic or Epic’s MyChart app that will be used by Duke Medicine and Stanford Children’s Health/Stanford Medicine, among others.
Details are now starting to emerge on the Duke and Stanford efforts. From the linked article:
Stanford Children’s Chief Medical Information Officer Christopher Longhurst told Reuters that Stanford and Duke were among the furthest along.
Longhurst said that in the first Stanford trial, young patients with Type 1 diabetes will be sent home with an iPod touch to monitor blood sugar levels between doctor’s visits.
HealthKit makes a critical link between measuring devices, including those used at home by patients, and medical information services relied on by doctors, such as Epic Systems Corp, a partner already announced by Apple.
Medical device makers are taking part in the Stanford and Duke trials.
DexCom Inc (DXCM.O), which makes blood sugar monitoring equipment, is in talks with Apple, Stanford, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration about integrating with HealthKit, said company Chief Technical Officer Jorge Valdes.
DexCom’s device measures glucose levels through a tiny sensor inserted under the skin of the abdomen. That data is transmitted every five minutes to a hand-held receiver, which works with a blood glucose meter. The glucose measuring system then sends the information to DexCom’s mobile app, on an iPhone, for instance.
Under the new system, HealthKit can scoop up the data from DexCom, as well as other app and device makers.
Data can be uploaded from HealthKit into Epic’s “MyChart” application, where it can be viewed by clinicians in Epic’s electronic health record.
This is a fun read. In today’s Monday note, Jean-Louis Gassée explores the creation of and reaction to the Apple Watch. Most interesting to me was the discussion of the potential role that Apple’s newly hired designer Marc Newson, a longtime pal of Jony Ive, played in the design of the Apple Watch.
The video embedded below is a few years old and has been making the rounds since word of Newson’s hire by Apple got out. It shows Newson lovingly, even wistfully, paging through his watch design portfolio. If you have not yet seen this, take a few minutes to watch. You’ll get to know a bit more about Marc Newson and, I think, you’ll be struck by how much the Apple Watch inherited from these designs.
Apple’s market cap pushed back over the $600 billion mark. Second place is Exxon Mobil Corp at $412 billion, then Google at $397 billion and Microsoft at $386 billion.
A few days ago, fresh from the iPhone 6, Apple Watch, Apple Pay launch, Tim Cook appeared on The Charlie Rose Show. The show edited and released the first half of that interview Friday night. The complete video is embedded below, courtesy of Hulu.
I love Charlie Rose’s interview technique. He’s laid back, draws his subjects in, let’s them unburden themselves. He has a collection of issues he wants to explore, but does so so softly, you might not realize he’s even steering.
There’s a lot to enjoy here. Charlie gets hands on with the new iPhones and a look at the Apple Watch on Tim’s wrist. Interestingly, Tim wore his watch, but controlled it himself, saying “I may have some things on here that you shouldn’t see just yet.”
Charlie talks IBM partnership, Beats acquisition, product design philosophy and a lot more.
Tim talks about Steve Jobs with great reverence. He tells the story of Steve telling him he was going to be Apple’s new CEO, getting the sense that Steve was not going to bounce back.
Ordering a new iPhone? Got one to sell or trade in? If so, take a look at the linked article. Apple Insider takes a look at nearly a dozen big-name buyback services and retailers and gives a sense of the going trade-in rate and the trade-in process.
If you watched Apple’s event on Tuesday, you no doubt heard that Tim Cook gave away U2’s newest album to about 500 million iTunes users. Three days after the release, Interscope Records said the release is “the biggest album launch ever.”
Of course that makes sense with so many people getting the album for free. However, older albums have also seen significant sales, as well.
“After delivering the new album for free to over half a billion iTunes customers, U2 also saw an unprecedented number of its previous releases enter the iTunes US album chart,” according to Interscope. “As of Thursday afternoon, 24 of the bands titles had charted on the top 200 of the chart, and the U218 Singles Collection had reached top 10 in 46 countries.”
It was a good day for Apple, but it looks like it turned out okay for U2 as well.
JPMorgan Chase’s chief financial officer, Marianne Lake, took the stage at a financial conference on Tuesday under strict orders not to mention her company’s involvement in Apple’s new payment system.
But when Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, at a news conference in California at the same time, finally brought up Apple Pay, one of Ms. Lake’s deputies in New York took a green apple out of her bag and put it on a table on the stage, signaling that Ms. Lake was free to discuss the service.
“So we are very excited about Apple Pay, and Chase customers will be able to participate in that,” Ms. Lake said, noting the appearance of the apple with a nod of her head.
The elaborate measures that Ms. Lake took to keep Apple Pay under wraps until the chosen time underscore the degree of preparation — and investment — that went into a partnership that has the potential to transform one of the banking industry’s most fundamental business lines.
I love these insider stories about how Apple cajoles, forces, convinces and beguiles companies into doing the things Apple wants to do in the ways Apple wants to do it.
Near Field Communications (NFC)—the technology behind those swipe-free terminals and now Apple Pay—is nothing new. The technology has existed since the late 1990s and appears in many forms, including key fobs, payment cards, and even (on certain phones) Google Wallet. It isn’t necessarily the most widely deployed payment technology, but it certainly isn’t new.
Which begs the question: Why all the hype about Apple Pay? Is it merely the Reality Distortion Field hyping something that’s actually ho-hum? Or is there something deeper here?
Rich Mogull is my go to guy when it comes to Apple security and issues surrounding it. As usual, he writes well and simply about a complicated topic.
I admit that seeing my colleagues leave has been a bit like having everyone around you suddenly raptured while you stand gawking with a ham sandwich shoved halfway in your mouth.
But I’m not here to feed Internet tittle-tattle. Rather, as someone who’s been with Macworld (and MacUser before it) for a very long time, I’d like to provide potential employers (and those who are simply interested in their favorite writers) some details about my departed colleagues.
Chris Breen is the only “big name” left at Macworld and his tribute to his former fellow employees is touching. And, having known personally many of the people he writes about, I’d say his assessments are 100% correct.
Many thanks to Smile Software for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week. PDFpen Scan+ offers scanning and OCR from your iPhone and iPad. Scan directly from your iPhone or iPad camera. Batch scanning is quick with post-process image editing. Scan cropping is fast and precise. With the new PDFpen Scan+ 1.4, you can automatically upload scans to Dropbox or PDFpen’s iCloud storage. After OCR, preview the results, then copy the text for use elsewhere. Share your scanned PDF, with embedded OCR text, by email or to your favorite cloud service. PDFpen Scan+ works on both your iPhone and your iPad, and it’s available on the App Store.
A whimsical post with a valid message at its core. One value of the Apple Watch becomes evident when you receive a call or text and your hands/arms are busy/full:
To check that message or call all I have to do is lift my wrist and the gyro kicks in, turning the display on. Then I can simply glance at my wrist, rather than stopping the dogs to fish out the phone, to see if the message is important enough to drop what I’m doing. And I can then respond through the Watch rather than having to dig for the phone.
As the clock ticked midnight in California, Apple fans around the world made their way to the Apple Store web site and app, as well as to many telco sites, in an effort to get their hands on an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus. There were problems on many fronts, as demand trumped availability.
Australian iPhone buyers crashed the websites of all three major telcos this afternoon in a rush to pre-order Apple’s two new smartphones. Pre-orders for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus were due to begin at 5pm this afternoon but demand proved too great for Telstra, Optus, Vodafone and even Apple websites, many of which failed to load at all.
The fact that these outages are spread evenly across the web, telcos, Apple, and even across continents tells me this is about demand, not about poor provisioning.
If you are considering one of the new iPhones, spend a minute walking through this carrier-by-carrier list of deals. Most notably this beat all trade-ins, match all deals offer from T-Mobile:
America’s most iconoclastic carrier is promising to beat any iPhone trade-in deal offered by AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint. Find a better value for your old phone than T-Mobile is offering, and they’ll match that deal and give you a $50 credit toward your bill. Plus, switch from your old carrier to T-Mobile and they’ll also give you up to $350 per line to get you out of your old contract.
The company also just announced that certain models of its phones—including the iPhone 6—will be able to make calls and send texts over Wi-Fi. And for frequent flyers, any plane with Gogo Air Wi-Fi will give free access to T-Mobile users starting September 17th.
Note that AT&T now charges a $40 “upgrade fee” if you want to buy a new phone on an existing contract. Odd strategy, considering how easy other carriers are making it to switch and how easy Apple makes it to move from one phone (back it up) to a new one (restore from backup).
“If there was a lot of emotion in my voice today, it’s because we’ve all been waiting for this day for a long time. It felt so great,” Cook, 53, told USA TODAY. “The people at this company are doing the best work of their lives, the best work that Apple has ever done.”
“It’s an incredible opportunity for us to switch people from Android to iOS. So yes, this is epic. It is epic,” he says.
I made mention of this both on Amplified and Your Mac Life yesterday. Cook seemed genuinely excited up on stage.
