WWDC 2015’s videos

For years, Apple has relied on videos to help tell the story of their products, but this year’s WWDC keynote videos were especially well-done. The entire keynote — including the hilarious intro video — can be seen over on Apple’s website.

The App Effect

In this film, Phil Schiller, Neil deGrasse Tyson and others talk about the importance of apps, not only to Apple’s platform, but to the way people work, play and live.

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MultiPadding⇢

Dr. Drang, on the history of multitasking on Apple products:

When the iPad came out, it was deja vu all over again. One screen, one app. Before the end of 2010, iOS 4 provided the Switcher-like multitasking bar and the ability to quickly shift from one app to another. Still only one app on the screen at a time, though. And while the multitasking bar has grown from a strip of icons into a set of screenshots, it’s still more like the Switcher than the MultiFinder.

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Apple Kbase Article of the Week: Apple Maps vehicles⇢

In a week full of WWDC news, this new article jumped out at me:

Apple is driving vehicles around the world to collect data which will be used to improve Apple Maps. Some of this data will be published in future Apple Maps updates.

We are committed to protecting your privacy while collecting this data. For example, we will blur faces and license plates on collected images prior to publication. If you have comments or questions about this process, please contact us.

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Thoughts on the WWDC 2015 keynote itself, but not the actual contents of the keynote, because I need more time to think

WWDC 2015 was a big one. New versions OS X, iOS and watchOS were shown off, along with the Beats-inspired Apple Music service.

The keynote itself is interesting for a couple of reasons. While there’s still a lot of news to digest, talking about the art of the keynote is fun, too.

After a rather hilarious intro video, Tim Cook skipped his normal “state of the company” segment, assumedly for the sake of time. The cynical voice in my head thinks that if he had gone into the numbers, and had glossed of Watch sales, part of the news cycle would have been taken with Watch sales speculation. Whatever the reason, Apple jumped right to its operating system updates.

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RSS Sponsor: Babble-on — Localize your iOS app⇢

¡Es como mil monos trabajando en mil máquinas de escribir tradujeron esta aplicación! On ne comprend rien de ce qu’on dit, c’est pas croyable!

…and so on. Those are the app reviews from developers who used fly-by-night localization companies or, for maximum pain, Google Translate.

International users pay good money for apps in their language. Don’t treat them like second-class netizens. Earn more downloads, more revenue, more respect, and invaluable goodwill from your users by hiring a talented team specialized in app localization. Babble-on has been doing this for 12 years, from a time when “apps” were called “programs” — really they were! We have a team of over 130 specialized translators that only do localization, and the same translators keep working on your app for each update you send us to ensure it sounds consistently spectacular.

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Tim Cook, on diversity⇢

My friend and fellow podcast host Christina Warren, in an interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook:

I sat down with Cook, a relatively reclusive interviewee, and asked why it was important that Apple ramp up its efforts in diversity. His answer was unequivocal: “It’s the future of our company.”

Cook added: “I view these people that I talk to today as the future generations of the company, and they will either be a part of it directly or a part of the ecosystem.

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Relay FM’s summer pilots⇢

This morning, Myke and I announced two new shows on Relay FM, the podcast network we launched last August.

Cortex and Reconcilable Differences are both amazing shows. The hosts are some of the best in the business. As I told Myke earlier this week, three-years-ago-me would have been floored to think about working with guys like Merlin, Siracusa and CGP Grey.

We have committed to ten episode of each show, and while they may go beyond that, the idea of short-run shows is something Myke and I talked a lot about when founding the network. This sort of experimenting was one of the reasons we wanted to build Relay.

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NYT: No new Apple TV at WWDC⇢

Brian Chen:

Yet one much ballyhooed device will be absent from the conference: a new Apple TV, Apple’s set-top box for televisions. The company planned as recently as mid-May to use the event to spotlight new Apple TV hardware, along with an improved remote control and a tool kit for developers to make apps for the entertainment device. But those plans were postponed partly because the product was not ready for prime time, according to two people briefed on the product.

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