Category: Apple

John Kheit at The Mac Observer:

Now that Apple is done planting trees in its stores, fixing punctuation, and creating new titles for the same old jobs, perhaps they can get back to actually making and shipping some new products. Hopefully Apple’s recent housekeeping is the end of a transition that will bring more coherently named and more regularly released product offerings.

It’s a real shame that Tim Cook pulled engineers off of their hardware projects to renovate Apple Stores. While it is past time for some new Macs, Kheit’s entire article is ridiculous.

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Jena McGregor has a lengthy piece on Tim Cook in The Washington Post, five years after Steve Jobs announced he was stepping down as CEO.

In the interview, Cook is his regular self. He doesn’t stray far from points the company has made before, but this passage jumped out at me, in context of Apple being an active voice in social issues:

Maybe there are compelling reasons why some people want to be silent. I think for us, though — for a company that’s all about empowering people through our products, and being a collection of people whose goal in life is to change the world for the better — it doesn’t sit right with me that you have that kind of focus, but you’re not making sure your carbon footprint isn’t poisoning the place. Or that you’re not evangelizing moving human rights forward. I think every generation has the responsibility to enlarge the meaning of human rights.

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If rumors are true, the next MacBook Pro will lack the standard F1-F12 keys that have graced keyboards for years. In its place, Apple is said to be using an OLED touch-sensitive bar.

Martin Hajek has created some mockups of what this could look like that are pretty stunning:

This type of hardware would give Apple a lot of flexibility. In the original iPhone keynote, Steve Jobs said something really interesting, with photos of existing smartphones on the slide over his shoulder:

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Now writing at Bloomberg, Mark Gurman has some details on what looks like a new MacBook Pro:

The updated notebooks will be thinner, include a touch screen strip for function keys, and will be offered with more powerful and efficient graphics processors for expert users such as video gamers, said the people, who asked not to be named.

Additionally, the new MacBook Pro will introduce Touch ID to the Mac lineup for the first time.

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Rick Tetzeli has published a wide-ranging interview with Tim Cook, Craig Federighi and Eddy Cue.

At the heart of the article is the concern that Apple is stretching too thin, moving far beyond it’s old scope of projects and products:

Steve Jobs had been the company’s editor, proud of saying no to features, products, business ideas, and new hires far more often than he said yes. Apple’s seemingly diffuse product line reinforces the argument that Cook is not as rigorous. (The fear has a worrisome precedent: During the early and mid-1990s, Apple’s product line was a mess of marketing-inspired offerings, and both its reputation as a unique manufacturer and its business suffered.)

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Joe Rossignol at MacRumors:

In addition to predicting an all-new Apple Watch 2 with a GPS, barometer, larger battery, and more, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo 2016 today claimed that upgraded first-generation Apple Watch models with faster TSMC-built processors and superior waterproofing will likely launch in the second half of 2016.

For several years, Apple has kept old iPads for sale at lower price points, demoting them when a new device is announced.

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This writer is using a PowerBook G4 to blog. I’ve always liked the idea of a “minimal writing machine,” a computer set up for writing and not much else. When I’ve tried similar things in the past, I always end up frustrated that I’m using a computer without all my stuff on it.

In many ways, the iPad has taken over this roll for me. I can write without a lot of on-screen distractions, but the rest of my data is just a few taps away. Still, this experiment is tempting, and I do have many PowerBooks I could choose from.

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This is some good stuff:

More than one hundred new and redesigned emoji characters will be available to iPhone and iPad users this Fall with iOS 10. This exciting update brings more gender options to existing characters, including new female athletes and professionals, adds beautiful redesigns of popular emoji, a new rainbow flag and more family options.

Some of these rolled out in iOS 10 Developer Beta 4 earlier today.

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I’m posting this link from my iPhone, sitting in a parking lot in the pouring rain. I’d say this device has changed the world.

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Apple has posted its Q3 results:

The Company posted quarterly revenue of $42.4 billion and quarterly net income of $7.8 billion, or $1.42 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $49.6 billion and net income of $10.7 billion, or $1.85 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 38 percent compared to 39.7 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 63 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

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Jim Dalrymple with good news for Apple Music users:

Apple has been quietly rolling out iTunes Match audio fingerprint to all Apple Music subscribers. Previously Apple was using a less accurate metadata version of iTunes Match on Apple Music, which wouldn’t always match the correct version of a particular song. We’ve all seen the stories of a live version of a song being replaced by a studio version, etc.

Using iTunes Match with audio fingerprint, those problems should be a thing of the past.

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In what will probably be the last build of El Capitan:

This update:

• Resolves an issue that may prevent settings from being saved in accounts with parental controls enabled.
• Resolves an issue that prevented some network devices, such as speakers and multifunction printers, from accessing SMB share points.

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