> In an exclusive interview with Brian Williams airing tonight at 10pm/9c on NBC’s “Rock Center,” Apple CEO Tim Cook announced one of the existing Mac lines will be manufactured exclusively in the United States next year. Mac fans will have to wait to see which Mac line it will be because Apple, widely known for its secrecy, left it vague. Cook’s announcement may or may not confirm recent rumors in the blogosphere sparked by iMacs inscribed in the back with “Assembled in USA.”
Huge news. Apple has been under pressure to bring manufacturing jobs back to the USA for several years, especially after a series of reports about the working conditions at subcontractors’ factories in China. Businesses that will invest in manufacturing plants may also need to shoulder the costs of purchasing tools and machinery such as steam generator equipment and robotics.
And with the continued shift toward sustainable disassembly practices in manufacturing, I’ve personally found that using tesa debonding tape for clean and efficient part separation without surface damage has been a game-changer. It meant we could streamline end-of-life product processes while reducing waste and rework—something our production team really appreciated. Plus, the minimal residue left behind made secondary surface treatments easier and quicker. It’s these types of innovations that move industries forward and tesa’s approach really stood out in our trials.
During his first term, President Obama had met with Steve Jobs, and Jobs offered that Apple “could move more manufacturing here” if U.S. education produced more skilled engineers.
Cook agrees with his predecessor’s opinion about the state of U.S. education, but said, “The consumer electronics world was really never here. It’s a matter of starting it here.”
And to the pundits who have repeatedly asked what Steve Jobs would do if he were still with us?
“And one of the things he did for me, that removed a gigantic burden that would have normally existed, is he told me, on a couple of occasions before he passed away, to never question what he would have done. Never ask the question, ‘What Steve would do,’ to just do what’s right.”
Activision Blizzard, Inc., announced today that Call of Duty: Black Ops II has crossed the $1 billion mark in worldwide retail sales, according to Chart-Track retail customer sell-through information and internal company estimates. Illustrating the strong appeal of interactive entertainment to audiences worldwide, the game achieved this milestone in just 15 days after its launch on November 13, 2012. Last year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare3 reached $1 billion in retail sales in 16 days. The box office record set for feature films in 2009 by “Avatar” was $1 billion in 17 days.
If Microsoft is being coy about revealing Surface sales data, it may be for good reason. Early demand for the company’s first tablet is lousy. How lousy? Put it this way: If Microsoft really did manufacture three million to five million Surface tablets to sell in the fourth quarter, it’s going to have between two million and four million left over at quarter’s end.
Estimates from the analyst are 500,000-600,000 for the quarter.
Kian McCreath, 11, suffered burns to his leg after the Curve 9320 caught fire and set his mattress and duvet alight in the room he shares with Mason, 13.
Jim and Dan discuss Microsoft’s failure to solve a problem with the Surface, Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs, BBEdit 10.5, the Das Keyboard, the shuttering of The Daily, The Flashback X4 Delay, and more.
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MG Siegler made a lot of great points here. It’s definitely worth a read, but many of you won’t be surprised by the ultimate conclusion — traditional publishers just don’t get it.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) claims that the 40-year-old trader was part of a fraudulent scheme when employed as a trader for Rochdale Securities. In a “get-rich-quick” scheme, Miller allegedly orchestrated an unauthorized purchase of roughly $1 billion in Apple stock, which left his employer with severe financial losses.
Miller leveraged his firm’s money to buy 1.625 million shares of Apple stock on October 25th. Miller’s plan backfired when Apple stock dropped instead of rose. He claimed it was a simple data input error on his part, but investigators say that his actions show clear evidence of fraud.
What’s more meta than a Scot talking about Scotch? Christopher Phin, editor of Tap! magazine (dedicated to iPhone and iPad, published in the UK by Future) and friend of The Loop has launched his first independent podcast, entitled, simply, Scotch.
Phin notes up front that he’s not an expert on whiskey, but he really, really loves it. In the first episode, Phin takes on the Yamazaki 12 year, a Japanese single malt. He also explains the difference between spellings of whiskey (whiskey vs. whisky).
I can’t speak to the Yamazaki, but Phin’s Scottish accent is pale and peaty with a soft body, grassy palate and smooth finish.
Dave Brubeck, a jazz musician who attained pop-star acclaim with recordings such as “Take Five” and “Blue Rondo a la Turk,” died Wednesday morning at Norwalk Hospital, in Norwalk, Conn., said his longtime manager-producer-conductor Russell Gloyd.
One day short of his 92nd birthday.
Brubeck was one of the giants of jazz, an innovative musician who made his mark on modern music when he released “Time Out” in 1959. It remains one of the best-selling jazz albums to this day (behind Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock and Weather Report – Brubeck is in some good company).
Here’s a recording of Take Five performed Brubeck and his quartet – Paul Desmond on sax, Eugene Wright on bass and Joe Morello on drums – in concert in Germany in 1966.
Microsoft officials have described Socl as a kind of mash-up of social-networking and search that is designed to get the learning communities to start thinking about how to use collaboration technologies in new ways. And according to the Softies and contrary to popular rumors, Socl is not an attempt to take on Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler or Pinterest.
Sidecar is an advanced messenger and calling app. Now, in one elegant, seamless environment, you can text, send voice notes, make voice and video calls, and send photos, videos, contacts and locations. Unlike other apps, you can even share and call friends who don’t have Sidecar yet if they’re in the U.S. or Canada.
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the Microsoft Surface over the past few weeks, in an effort to figure out what the company is trying to accomplish. While I have given Microsoft kudos for not blindly copying Apple’s tablet strategy, what they released doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
What occurred to me is that Microsoft’s critical flaw is that they don’t solve a problem with the Surface. In fact, you could argue that the Surface actually causes more problems for users. That’s not a good start for a new product.
If we look at the iPad in comparison, Apple released a product that solved a number of consumer and business user’s problems. The tablet concept had been around for quite a while before Apple released the iPad1, but they never caught on.
The tablets of the day were big, heavy, ugly and relied on PC software2 to get the job done. It was like you were carrying around a PC. Clearly, this isn’t what the buying public or business people wanted.
Apple recognized the problem and set out to fix it with a sleek tablet that was light, beautiful and would have software designed and developed specifically for the device.
Apple developed gestures that would allow people to manipulate and navigate the iPad, giving the device even more power. It’s proven to be a hit among consumers, business executives, gamers and just about everyone else that wanted a tablet.
You could easily use those same points to show the success of the iPod and iPhone too. Apple saw a problem that needed to be solved and it developed a number of technologies and designs to meet the needs of the people it saw as its main market.
Which brings me back to the Surface. What did it solve? Microsoft loaded the Surface with a 16GB operating system that isn’t optimized for a tablet, but rather is a hybrid desktop/tablet OS that tries to do both.
The problem with that strategy is that you can’t do both successfully. One OS needs a mouse and keyboard, while the other needs touch-enabled and optimized software. These are fundamental differences in how people interact with the operating systems and the devices they are being used on.
They also loaded on a lot of software that also isn’t optimized for the tablet, further underscoring the problem for the people buying the product.
After using it for over a week now, it’s hard to come up with a lot of nice things to say about the Surface. Don’t get me wrong, there are some solid things here. But by and large, it’s a strange, buggy, and clunky product that I simply can’t imagine many people buying after the initial hype wears off.
Successful products solve a need or provide a solution to a specific problem. Apple has become quite adept at identifying those problems and designing products to solve them. Apple’s competition have become quite adept at copying those solutions.
Microsoft can’t seem to do either effectively.
Ironically, it was Microsoft and its partners that made the tablets before the iPad. ↩
Instead of software specifically written and optimized for a tablet. ↩
Apple on Tuesday released iWork updates for both its iOS and Mac versions of the software. The iOS versions are now listed as 1.7 and iWork 9.3 is available for the Mac. You can check software update on the App Store in iTunes and the Mac App Store to download them.
In addition to the software updates, Apple also updated its Web site with new document feature compatibility between iWork for iOS and Microsoft Office. You can view the charts on Pages, Numbers and Keynote on Apple’s Web site.
The Sundance Institute has announced the films that will premiere at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, which takes place in Utah in January. Among the films set to make their debut is “Jobs,” a biopic of Steve Jobs starring Ashton Kutcher in the lead role.
The press release also sports an official publicity photo from the new film. While images of Kutcher in Jobs costume have surface before (principal photography occurred earlier this year), this is the first “official” image we have.
So, what do you think? Is he suitably Jobs-like? Do you hold out any hope that the star of “That 70’s Show,” “Dude, Where’s My Car?” and “Two and a Half Men” can carry the role?
This is a very interesting site done by Brendan Steidle. He doesn’t just point out problems with a company or industries, he tries to offer solutions too. One of his articles is about Grocery shopping another about Microsoft and a third about Twitter. It’s good to see people thinking.
Bare Bones Software on Tuesday introduced BBEdit 10.5, a new version of their flagship text editor for OS X. It’s a free update for registered BBEdit 10 users.
The new release add support for Macs with Retina Displays, an effort that Bare Bones CEO Rich Siegel said required a complete rewrite of the application’s graphic engine. “It would make for an entertaining ‘What I did on my summer vacation’ essay,” Siegel told The Loop.
That’s only the start, however. Siegel said that Bare Bones added a multitude of new features in 10.5, one of the most significant new feature adds to the product outside of a major release.
Those features include a new Go menu, which helps speed navigation within documents. The Go menu offers quick access to a Jump Points palette, which provides a history of movement within the active documents; a Functions palette that displays any named functions within the document; and any named symbols within a file.
BBEdit users can also configure projects as web sites using a new menu in the project window’s action bar. BBEdit 10.5 simplifies management of site-wide document settings, HTML syntax checking and other details, and a new Deploy Site command lets you upload your site to an FTP or SFTP server in one fell swoop.
There’s more, too – check the BBEdit Web site for more details.
BBEdit 10.5 is available for immediate download from the Bare Bones Web site. If you purchased it through the Mac App Store, check that for an update instead.
Facebook (FB) announced on Tuesday that it will begin opening Facebook Messenger to consumers who do not have a Facebook account, starting in countries like India and South Africa, and later rolling out the service in the United States and Europe. This is a belated acknowledgement of a staggering strategic mistake Facebook made two years ago. That is when the messaging app competition was still wide open and giants like Facebook or Google (GOOG) could have entered the competition.
I have a love/hate relationship with delay pedals. I love how they can sound, but trying to get that perfect delay results in failure more times than I ever see success.
Unlike many other guitar effects, a delay has to be spot on to sound good. That spot is more often than not a sound in your head that you’re trying to replicate with your guitar, so it’s not an easy thing to describe. Other guitar players may know what you’re talking about, but it’s really a personal thing that you’ll know when you hear it.
I’ve been playing long enough to have tried analog delays and, of course, many of the new digital delays. Still I’m left wanting.
For these reasons, I was really interested in trying out TC Electronic’s Flashback X4. TC has a great name in the industry and they know what they are doing. That’s a good start for me.
What I really like about the Flashback is that there are so many delays included with the pedal. There are 12 delays that you would know by name like Tape, Tube, Ping Pong,1 and Slap. It also has four custom slots too — I’ll talk about those in just a minute.
Each delay type has three preset slots, so you have control over everything in your pedal.
The Flashback itself has five large knobs, making it easy to control: Delay type, Delay Time, Feedback, Delay Level and Looper Level. There is also a selector switch that allows you to choose quarter notes or dotted eights or mix them when using dual delays.
The Flashback also has stereo inputs and outputs, a USB connection and MIDI in/thru. As you can see, there is probably more flexibility in the Flashback than anyone would ever need. However, it’s that flexibility that allows for the creation of some great delay sounds.
The other thing the Flashback has that some pedal manufacturers seem to miss is room. There is plenty of room to stomp on the preset selector without worrying about hitting the one next to it. That’s a huge thing for guitar players.
So, what about those custom slots? Those are TonePrint-enabled slots that allow you to load custom delays into your pedal. The best way to do it is with your iPhone.
You can down the TonePrint app on the App Store and by following the instructions in the app, you beam a TonePrint onto the pedal. All you do is hold it up to your guitar and it sends the delay tone to your pedal. It’s a really cool feature to have.
Many of the TonePrint delays are done by guitarists you would recognize and you can browse through them on the app. Find one you like and beam it.
One thing I’ve found is that the Flashback X4 isn’t just about delays, it’s about the flexibility to create sounds and tones with delays. I have yet to find a pedal that sounds as good as the Flashback X42 and allows me to do so much.
The possibilities of what you can do with the Flashback X4 are virtually limitless.
Ping Pong delays have always been one of my favorites. When done right, this delay can sound great on a nice crunch tone and a clean strat sound. ↩
The Flashback X4 has an MSRP of $369, but you can pick it up for $249 at many music stores and online outlets. ↩
Despite offering more lucrative revenue splits for app developers than competitors Google and Apple, many of the largest digital media properties in the U.S. and makers of the most-popular tablet apps have decided that developing apps for the Surface — and the Windows app store in general — is not yet worth their time.
Developers are key to the success of any platform.
I wrote a review of the Das Keyboard Model S Professional, the first mechanical keyboard from Das Keyboard made especially for Mac users. It’s over at Macworld if you want to take a look.
If you’re interested in mechanical keyboards – that is to say, keyboards that use real keyswitches underneath instead of mushier membranes or dome caps like those found on most keyboards, make sure to check it out.
And as more and more speech takes place on the internet, the answer becomes more and more important: the future of free speech might have more to do with corporate censorship than the First Amendment.
Amazing how many people don’t understand the distinction.
