I don’t know what’s going to happen. I fear that we will be unable to insure our son because he was diagnosed with a brain tumor as an infant. I fear that I am going to be in a position where I have to choose between my company and my family.
That — in no way — is something that I should fear as an American citizen, an entrepreneur or a father.
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The Six Colors Apple Report Card for 2016⇢
As we close the door on 2016, I thought it would be useful to look back at the year gone by and ask a panel of my peers who pay attention to Apple and related markets to take a moment and reflect on Apple’s performance in the past year.
I love being part of this every year.
10.5"⇢
Dan Provost has been doing math concerning the rumored new iPad size:
When the original iPad Pro 12.9" was introduced in September 2015, Phil Schiller demonstrated the reasoning for that sizing by illustrating that the width of the new iPad is the exact same dimension as the height of the 9.7" iPad.
This has the advantage of essentially having two full height iPad apps, side by side.
Now, imagine Apple doing the exact same thing, but with the iPad mini.
Sal Soghoian at MacStories⇢
Here’s a thought experiment. Let’s imagine that Apple decided to combine their engineering resources to form app teams that delivered both iOS and macOS versions of applications.
In such a scenario it may seem logical to retain application features common to both platforms and to remove those that were perceived to require extra resources. Certainly Automation would be something examined in that regard, and the idea might be posited that: “App Extensions are equivalent to, or could be a replacement for, User Automation in macOS.” And by User Automation, I’m referring to Apple Event scripting, Automator, Services, the UNIX command line utilities, etc.
Facebook Launches Journalism Project⇢
Mike Isaac at The New York Times has details:
The effort calls for the company to forge deeper ties with publishers by collaborating on publishing tools and features before they are released. Facebook will also develop training programs and tools for journalists to teach them how to better search its site to report on news and events. And Facebook wants to help train members of the public to find news sources they trust, while fighting the spread of fake news across its site.
Chris Lattner Now at Tesla
Earlier today, Chris Lattner announced that he is leaving Apple:
I’m happy to announce that Ted Kremenek will be taking over for me as “Project Lead” for the Swift project, managing the administrative and leadership responsibility for Swift.org. This recognizes the incredible effort he has already been putting into the project, and reflects a decision I’ve made to leave Apple later this month to pursue an opportunity in another space. This decision wasn’t made lightly, and I want you all to know that I’m still completely committed to Swift. I plan to remain an active member of the Swift Core Team, as well as a contributor to the swift-evolution mailing list.
Connected #124: A Bunch of Enterprising Italians⇢
This week, the aging hosts of Connected remember their first reactions to the iPhone and talk about the value of independent blogging.
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Tech News Today #1679⇢
I had a fun time talking on Tech News Today about the iPhone’s 10th anniversary.
Apple Comments on Consumer Reports Battery Tests⇢
Rene Ritchie has the statement:
We learned that when testing battery life on Mac notebooks, Consumer Reports uses a hidden Safari setting for developing web sites which turns off the browser cache. This is not a setting used by customers and does not reflect real-world usage. Their use of this developer setting also triggered an obscure and intermittent bug reloading icons which created inconsistent results in their lab. After we asked Consumer Reports to run the same test using normal user settings, they told us their MacBook Pro systems consistently delivered the expected battery life. We have also fixed the bug uncovered in this test. This is the best pro notebook we’ve ever made, we respect Consumer Reports and we’re glad they decided to revisit their findings on the MacBook Pro.
Yahoo Remnants to Become Altaba; Mayer to Possibly Leave⇢
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, once tasked with turning the struggling company around, is set to exit the company’s board when its sale to Verizon closes, a company SEC filing said today.
The exit of Mayer, along with Yahoo co-founder David Filo and four other board members, will reduce the size of the company’s board to five members. Upon closing the deal, Yahoo will take on a new name too: Altaba Inc.
Robert Scoble: Apple and Zeiss to Ship Augmented Reality Glasses, Perhaps in 2017⇢
iPhone: A Decade’s Worth of Impact
Unlike Marco, I didn’t follow along as Steve Jobs unveiled the original iPhone ten years ago.
I was into Apple — and a Retail employee — at the time, but on January 9, 2007, I was in rural North Carolina visiting family members.
I remember getting a bunch of texts from my co-workers and nerd friends saying that Apple had just introduced something that seemed impossible.
I remember poring over the original webpages Apple published, trying to squeeze every drop of information out of them over my aunt’s dial-up connection.