posts

Marissa Mayer, writing on the Verizon-owned Tumblr:

It’s been my great honor and privilege to be a part of this team for the last 5 years. Together, we have rebuilt, reinvented, strengthened, and modernized our products, our business, and our company.

Looking back on my time at Yahoo, we have confronted seemingly insurmountable business challenges, along with many surprise twists and turns. I’ve seen our teams navigate these hurdles and mountains in ways that have not only made Yahoo a better company, but also made all of us far stronger. During these past 5 years, we’ve built products that delight our users, focused on our clients’ businesses, driven substantial value for our shareholders, and endeavored to make Yahoo the absolute best place to work. I want to take a moment to remind you of some of our many achievements together. They are remarkable, and we should all be very proud.

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Alex Webb and Emily Chang at Bloomberg:

After years toiling away in secret on its car project, Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has for the first time laid out exactly what the company is up to in the automotive market: It’s concentrating on self-driving technology.

“We’re focusing on autonomous systems,” Cook said in a June 5 interview on Bloomberg Television that amounted to his most detailed comments yet on Apple’s automotive plans. “It’s a core technology that we view as very important.” He likened the effort to “the mother of all AI projects,” saying it’s “probably one of the most difficult AI projects to work on.”

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Two different stories caught my attention as I spent some time today catching up from a week at WWDC:

1. Jeff Rule built a replica of a long-lost Apple prototype from the early 1990s. The work done in this prototype led to the 20th Anniversary Mac, and Rule’s work really brings the concept back to life in an amazing way.

2. Chris Larkin has put a project together to build a tiny Apple II, complete with emulation. Tested published a video of the model and what goes into making one. It’s pretty incredible the Apple II can be emulate on such cheap hardware these days.

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I’m watching macOS High Sierra install on my MacBook Pro. I plan on reviewing it this fall, and wanted to jump in a little earlier than I normally do.

However, I expect that I will need to work on my notebook some this summer, so I’m installing it on an external SSD. Specifically, the Samsung T3 Portable SSD. It’s fast and small, and has a USB C port on the back of the drive. I’m using the included USB C to A cable, but am going to swap it with a USB C cable for a little less clutter.

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Nilay Patel:

Walt Mossberg is retiring this year — he’s already written his last column, hosted his last Code Conference, and taped the final episode of Ctrl-Walt-Delete in front of a live audience in New York. But Walt’s also assembled an impressive collection of notable gadgets over his two decade run as a reviewer and columnist, and we asked him to talk us through some of the more notable items as he cleared out of his office.

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WWDC is winding down here in San Jose, and I think everyone’s pretty happy.

Most people I’ve spoken to like the move from San Francisco to San Jose. I know I do; I feel like WWDC has taken over the downtown area in a good way. It’s easy to run into people in a venue or restaurant and strike up a conversation because chances are, they are here for the conference. The badass WWDC jackets helped make it easy to spot each other.¹

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Jason Snell:

New extensions to Apple’s podcast feed specification will allow podcasts to define individual seasons and explain whether an episode is a teaser, a full episode, or bonus content. These extensions will be read by the Podcast app and used to present a podcast in a richer way than the current, more linear, approach. (Since podcast feeds are just text, other podcast apps will be free to follow Apple’s lead and also alter how they display podcasts based on these tags.)

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My thanks to Working Copy for sponsoring 512 Pixels this week. It puts your sourcecode, websites, and images on your tablet and phone, even when offline. It’s Git for iOS, and it’s pretty awesome.

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I’ve heard several questions from people wanting to know if Dropbox will be a part of iOS 11’s Files app. The answer is yes:

iOS users have been requesting better file management on iPhone and iPad for a long time. The new Files app, coming later this year, does just that, letting you more easily manage and access files in your Dropbox throughout iOS 11. Much like macOS Finder, Files will give you an easy way to browse, open, edit, move, rename, upload, create folders and download files stored in Dropbox with your iOS device.

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Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by James Thomson, the indie iOS and Mac developer behind apps like PCalc and DragThing. He has a long history with Apple, and was recently sharing some old photos on Twitter. I badgered him into sharing some more with me here.

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I visited Infinite Loop for the first time around twenty years ago, and decided to properly document my visit. All these photos were all taken on my trusty film camera, and the negatives scanned some years later. They were promptly forgotten about until now.

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The view from outside of Infinite Loop building 1. It looks pretty much the same today, with the exception of the six colour Apple logo. Steve’s office was at the top right. At this point Infinite Loop had only been open for four years.

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The Icon Garden, featuring Clarus the Dogcow who was the mascot of the Developer Technical Support group, and appeared in the print dialog. One day, Steve got rid of the icon garden in the middle of the night and everybody was very sad.

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This week on Ungeniused:

The port city of Texas City, Texas has witnessed not one, but two, explosive accidents over the last century. With hundreds dead and even more injured, this city has seen more than its fair share of disasters.

My thanks to our sponsor:

• Casper: Because everyone deserves a great night sleep. Get $50 off with the code ‘UNGENIUSED’

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This week on Connected:

Live from San Jose, the trio talk about the news from a little event known as WWDC.

This is a really good episode, and the first time we’ve done it sitting around a table together.

My thanks to our sponsors:

• Hover: Transfer your domain and get 40% off an additional year.
• MacStadium: It’s time to get your Mac infrastructure out of the office closet and into the hands of the experts.
• Igloo: A digital workplace platform Free for up to 10 people.

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