For years, Apple has sent new Genius hires to its Infinite Loop headquarters in Cupertino, or sometimes an auxiliary campus in Austin or Atlanta, to receive hands-on training for up to three weeks. Recently, however, Apple appears to have stopped offering these group-based trips, according to people familiar with the matter.
Apple’s off-site Genius Training program has been replaced by an in-store, self-guided experience using company-provided reference materials, according to a source. The training now involves watching web-based seminars through the Apple Technical Learning Administration System, or ATLAS, another source said.
Category: Apple
WWDC Scholarships Now Include Lodging⇢
WWDC Scholarships reward talented students and STEM organization members with the opportunity to attend this year’s conference. Developers selected for a scholarship will receive a WWDC17 ticket and lodging free of charge.
I’m glad to see lodging covered as part of the scholarship. Most of the time, the WWDC ticket itself is not the most expensive thing about the trip.
Steve Jobs, on the Genius Bar⇢
The Future of Target Display Mode
In the fall of 2009, Apple retired the 20 and 24-inch iMacs in favor of widescreen models with 21.5 and 27 inch displays.
These machines are not the Retina models we enjoy today, and still packed things like an optical drive. They introduced Target Display Mode, which allowed a user to use an iMac as an external display for another Mac.
Late 2009 and Mid 2010 models required a Mini DisplayPort cable for the feature to work. Setting it up was as simple as running a cable from the Mini DisplayPort on a MacBook Pro over to the same port on the iMac, and pressing Command-F2 on the iMac’s keyboard.
Review: 27-inch iMac with 5K Retina display
My years of a Mac user can be broken into three main eras:
- The Early Days: A string of PowerBooks and MacBook Pros with work and personal data on them.
- The Great Divide: An iMac at home and a laptop at work.1
- Giving Up: Using a work laptop for everything again with a Mac mini as a home server.
I’ve been lucky that every job I’ve had after leaving the Apple Store in 2008 has provided me with a Mac notebook to use as I see fit.
Apple Promotes HomeKit on New Webpage⇢
HomeKit has quietly been getting better over the last year or so, and this new page on Apple’s website shows it off well.
However, this came to mind immediately:
Nice website, but the film just showcases to me how much easier it is to tell Alexa to do all the same things. https://t.co/bR994S5Rer
— Scott McNulty (@blankbaby) March 2, 2017
For me, I’m not installing any smart home devices that don’t work with both Alexa and HomeKit.
Apple Park⇢
Apple’s new campus has a name:
Apple today announced that Apple Park, the company’s new 175-acre campus, will be ready for employees to begin occupying in April. The process of moving more than 12,000 people will take over six months, and construction of the buildings and parklands is scheduled to continue through the summer.
Envisioned by Steve Jobs as a center for creativity and collaboration, Apple Park is transforming miles of asphalt sprawl into a haven of green space in the heart of the Santa Clara Valley. The campus’ ring-shaped, 2.8 million-square-foot main building is clad entirely in the world’s largest panels of curved glass.
The State of iBooks⇢
Michael Cohen at TidBits, after outlining a myriad of problems with Apple’s iBooks apps:
I cannot see into the heart of Apple to judge the depth of its love for iBooks, but, from external appearances, whatever affection it has seems to become ever more shallow with each passing release. And, for an ebook lover like me, that is heartbreaking.
We Hear You⇢
I’m not one for linking to every ad Apple puts out, but these are great.
My Smart Home Setup
There’s something obvious I should state up front: no one needs this stuff. My exploration in this area has been under the guise of “I need a cool backdrop for YouTube videos,” but even that is probably not a great reason to spend a bunch of money on lights that change colors.
That aside, this stuff is fun to play with, and I like what I can do with it.
WWDC 2017: June 5-9 in San Jose⇢
Big news this morning out of Apple:
Apple today announced its 28th annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) — hosting the world’s most talented developer community — will be held at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose. The conference, kicking off June 5, will inspire developers from all walks of life to turn their passions into the next great innovations and apps that customers use every day across iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV and Mac.