While Apple isn’t at CES, they sure can be felt in Las Vegas most years.
Category: Apple
Panic, on leaving the Mac App Store⇢
Cabel Sasser:
Coda was removed from the Mac App Store in mid-October, at the same time version 2.5 was released. Since new releases always generate a short-term sales spike and we wanted the numbers to be fairly representative of “typical sales”, we looked at one month on either side — September and November.
The results were interesting. We sold a couple hundred fewer units of Coda post-App Store removal, but revenue from it went up by about 44%.
Skepticism and trepidation⇢
I don’t often want to shout “Amen!” after reading a blog post, but I don’t disagree with a single syllable of this. These paragraphs really hit home:
Apple has always been a marketing-driven company, but there’s a balance to be struck. Marketing plays a vital role, but marketing priorities cannot come at significant expense to quality.
I suspect the rapid decline of Apple’s software is a sign that marketing is too high a priority at Apple today: having major new releases every year is clearly impossible for the engineering teams to keep up with while maintaining quality. Maybe it’s an engineering problem, but I suspect not — I doubt that any cohesive engineering team could keep up with these demands and maintain significantly higher quality.
On selling outside the Mac App Store⇢
Realmac Software’s Dan Counsell:
When you get swept along in the shininess of the App Store it’s easy to forget that you no longer know who your customers are. You don’t have any of their details, you can’t even respond to them when they leave a review on the App Store. The fact of the matter is they are really Apples customers, not yours.
When you sell directly outside of the Mac App Store you get the contact details for every single person that buys your products (and rightly so), this is often overlooked but it’s key to running a healthy and sustainable business.
‘Why I Drilled Holes in My MacBook Pro and Put It in the Oven’⇢
Parents, don’t let your kids read this blog post.
Breathe life into an old Mac
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Joe Caiati. Joe works as an IT professional in New York City. He maintains a weblog called dot info and calls Twitter his second home.
Depending on the year it was purchased or whether you configured it with top-tier specs, your once-current Mac’s performance may be less than desirable and at this point you could be facing those tough questions.
Luckily, older Macs are more flexible with hardware upgrades and coupled with third-party software, you can unlock features that Apple doesn’t support on older models. Here is how to get the most life out of an aging Mac.
Apple auto-installed yesterday’s OS X NTP update⇢
Reuters:
When Apple has released previous security patches, it has done so through its regular software update system, which typically requires user intervention.
The company decided to deliver the NTP bug fixes with its technology for automatically pushing out security updates, which Apple introduced two years ago but had never previously used, because it wanted to protect customers as quickly as possible due to the severity of the vulnerabilities, [Apple spokesman Bill] Evans said.
A few pointers for surviving holiday tech support⇢
Bradely Chambers, for The Sweet Setup:
The Christmas season is a magical time of the year for our families. This is the time of year when we get to provide in home technical support for all of their products. They’ve got you as a captive audience for a few hours, and they’ve been waiting all year to ask you a number of questions. We decided to make a list of things you need to do to be proactive in taking care of your family members’ iOS devices and Macs.
Apple releases NTP Security Update for OS X⇢
This is an important one, Mac users.
The state of Apple’s Mac software: December 2014
Back in May of 2013, I took a look at all of Apple’s software in the Mac App Store and walked away with the conclusion that a lot of Apple’s first-party Mac apps were in pretty sorry shape.
Let’s revisit that, and see how things shape up here at the end of 2014.
Please note that all prices listed below don’t take into account that many of these apps are free for with new Macs. Ratings pulled from the Mac App Store on December 14, 2014.
Apple updates ‘Made for iPhone’ standards for case makers⇢
I was only at the Genius Bar a few months past the launch of the iPhone 3G, but even then, it was awkward to tell customers that they had to pay to have their damaged phones replaced, even if they were in cases purchased in the very same store. While no case is perfect, I’m glad to see Apple working to improve what earns the MFi program badge.
Inside the Mac Pro⇢
I’m usually not one to link to patents, but Apple’s applications for the Mac Pro include some beautiful imagery and this abstract:
Apple’s Patent Abstract: An internal component and external interface arrangement for a cylindrical compact computing system is described that includes at least a structural heat sink having triangular shape disposed within a cylindrical volume defined by a cylindrical housing. A computing engine having a generally triangular shape is described having internal components that include a graphics processing unit (GPU) board, a central processing unit (CPU) board, an input/output (I/O) interface board, an interconnect board, and a power supply unit (PSU).