This is about the single most annoying thing that an app developer can do. I know that the iOS ecosystem revolves around positive reviews, but there has to be a better way to request reviews and ratings than this.
posts
Incorrect
“Use of social media and electronic media obviously means that anybody with a laptop, anybody with a PDA, is a journalist,” says Roger Simon, Politico’s chief political columnist and another newcomer to news-by-tweet.
It means anyone can be a witness, not a journalist.
The Culture
Apple isn’t going to stop making iPads or close up shop because Steve Jobs is leaving. But they may be showing a different face to the public and speaking to the public in a different voice. And if that happens, the cultural Apple may change substantially more than the technical Apple or the business Apple.
I disagree. I think Jobs has probably spent more time spreading his ideas on Apple’s culture and values than anything else.
Apple, Moving Forward
Tim Cook, in an email to Apple employees:
I want you to be confident that Apple is not going to change. I cherish and celebrate Apple’s unique principles and values. Steve built a company and culture that is unlike any other in the world and we are going to stay true to that—it is in our DNA. We are going to continue to make the best products in the world that delight our customers and make our employees incredibly proud of what they do.
Thirteen Years
For my last Steve Jobs related linked item for the day, I present Nilay Patel’s epic overview of Apple products that were released during Jobs’ last 13 years as Apple CEO.
‘I’m Thinking Printers’
Following the resignation of Apple founder Steve Jobs, incoming CEO Tim Cook called a meeting of shareholders and members of the press Thursday morning to announce that he envisioned printers as the company’s future. “Laser, ink-jet, double-sided, color, black-and-white—the future of technology is in printers. I am absolutely convinced of that,” Cook explained to a packed auditorium as a montage of printers and people using printers played on a screen behind him. “What is the one thing people will always need? It’s obvious: printers. Printers with fax machines attached, printers that collate and staple, perhaps a printer that makes photocopies. Anything’s possible. It’s called innovation.”
Jobs and Apple
Apple’s products are replete with Apple-like features and details, embedded in Apple-like apps, running on Apple-like devices, which come packaged in Apple-like boxes, are promoted in Apple-like ads, and sold in Apple-like stores. The company is a fractal design. Simplicity, elegance, beauty, cleverness, humility. Directness. Truth. Zoom out enough and you can see that the same things that define Apple’s products apply to Apple as a whole. The company itself is Apple-like. The same thought, care, and painstaking attention to detail that Steve Jobs brought to questions like “How should a computer work?”, “How should a phone work?”, “How should we buy music and apps in the digital age?” he also brought to the most important question: “How should a company that creates such things function?”
‘Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.’
Steve Jobs Resigns
I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.
I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.
As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.
St. Jude to Expand Memphis Campus
St. Jude will build a nearly $190 million medical tower that will be a mirror image of the seven-story, 340,000-square-foot Chili’s Care Center and will be attached to that facility.
The new tower will include replacement facilities for St. Jude’s surgical department and intensive care unit. It will also house a department of computational biology and the Global Education and Collaboration Center.
The tower will also house a new $68 million proton-beam radiation therapy center for cancer treatment. Proton-beam therapy is an advanced form of radiation therapy that can be precisely guided to target cancer tumors and create less damage to the areas around them.
Old Mac of the Month: The 12" PowerBook G4
Editor’s Note: This “Old Mac of the Month” entry is by Shadoe Huard, the writer of SmarterBits, where he covers the world of Apple. Neil Gaiman:
You will hear that she has left the country, that there was a gift she wanted you to have, but it is lost before it reaches you. Late one night the telephone will sign, and a voice that might be hers will say something that you cannot interpret before the connection crackles and is broken.
San Francisco Daily Papers to Fold
MediaNews Group will combine 11 of its daily newspapers in the San Francisco Bay area into two to save money.
The shake-up announced Tuesday at the company built by Dean Singleton will affect newspapers located across the bay from San Francisco. Beginning Nov. 2, those newspapers will shed their distinct identities and adopt one of two new brands, the East Bay Tribune and The Times.
Terrible news. Memphis was a two-newspaper town until the Memphis Press-Scimitar closed back in 1983. The city isn’t any better for it.