This time on Somehow I Manage, Tiff and I kick off out rewatch of The Office’s sixth season:
Tiff and Stephen show off their parkour skills, and while icing their bruises, the two discuss “Gossip”. This episode of “The Office” originally aired on September 17, 2009.
Apple University Dean and Vice President Joel Podolny:
When Jobs arrived back at Apple, it had a conventional structure for a company of its size and scope. It was divided into business units, each with its own P&L responsibilities. General managers ran the Macintosh products group, the information appliances division, and the server products division, among others. As is often the case with decentralized business units, managers were inclined to fight with one another, over transfer prices in particular. Believing that conventional management had stifled innovation, Jobs, in his first year returning as CEO, laid off the general managers of all the business units (in a single day), put the entire company under one P&L, and combined the disparate functional departments of the business units into one functional organization.
The adoption of a functional structure may have been unsurprising for a company of Apple’s size at the time. What is surprising—in fact, remarkable—is that Apple retains it today, even though the company is nearly 40 times as large in terms of revenue and far more complex than it was in 1998. Senior vice presidents are in charge of functions, not products. As was the case with Jobs before him, CEO Tim Cook occupies the only position on the organizational chart where the design, engineering, operations, marketing, and retail of any of Apple’s main products meet. In effect, besides the CEO, the company operates with no conventional general managers: people who control an entire process from product development through sales and are judged according to a P&L statement.
The Dropbox Family plan has 2 TB of storage space that can be shared by up to 6 members, ages 13 and older. With Dropbox Family, you and your family can securely organize and share content, like photos, videos, and important documents.
With Dropbox Family, each member of the plan has their own Dropbox account. They can manage their own files and folders and decide what to share with other family members. A single person, the Family manager, will manage the billing and memberships for the entire Family plan.
It runs 203.88 a year, or $16.99/month. I think Merri and I will be moving to this.
Reviews have landed for the iPhone 12 and iPad Air. The trio talk through the coverage, including Federico’s iPad Air article. Also: Stephen asks for help with a problem, and Myke is very excited about how gold phones are made.
On Connected Pro, I shared about my upcoming surgery, and Federico and Myke are confused by daylight savings time. There are tubes everywhere.
My thanks to our sponsors:
Stephen comes with good news about InSight’s Mole, and Jason says there probably aren’t aliens on Venus. Also: OSIRIS-REx is due for a big day and the space industry in China is heating up.
My thanks to our sponsor:
After extensive testing, we’ve discovered that in very rare cases, some Philips Hue 40 Watt outdoor power supply units (PSU) may become damaged due to water leakage and pose a safety risk if touched in wet conditions.
This seems … not great, but I am still interested in putting some of these out front of our house at some point.
iCloud Photos and My Photo Stream can help you get your photos on your Apple devices and on your PC. What’s the difference between them? Learn more about both features.
Back in its day, I always found Photo Stream a little confusing; iCloud Photos makes way more sense, and has been solid for years. However, this feature still exists, at least for most people.
Interestingly, it seems that Apple has done away with Photo Stream, at least for new accounts, according to a footnote on this page:
If you recently created your Apple ID, My Photo Stream might not be available. Use iCloud Photos to keep your photos and videos in iCloud.
This week on Ungeniused, things get tasty:
When it comes to assessing storm damage, keeping an eye on cheap breakfast food may be the best way to do things.
My thanks to our sponsor:
I just got done with a Twitch stream unboxing the iPhone 12 Pro clear case, MagSafe charger and a new USB-C charger. The video will be up for several days, if you want to see these things in action.
And yes, the MagSafe charger does charge both my iPhone 11 Pro and AirPods 2 wireless charging case.
I have big plans for my Twitch channel, so if you aren’t following it yet, now is the time.
TextExpander removes the repetition out of work so you can focus on what matters most. Say goodbye to repetitive text entry, spelling and message errors, and trying to remember the right thing to say. TextExpander can be used in any platform, any app, anywhere you type.
A computer without TextExpander just feels incomplete to me.
Take your time back and increase your productivity. 512 Pixels readers get 20% off their first year.
Zac Hall from 9to5Mac and Space Explored joins David and Stephen to talk about the state of the Apple Watch’s software and hardware, as well as Apple’s new iPhones.
Hard to believe there’s still more Apple news to go this fall!
My thanks to our sponsors this week: