posts

Ben Brooks, back over the summer:

At the D8 conference Steve Jobs remarked that perhaps the news industry needs an iTunes type model for news. He went on to say that we need news outlets so that we don’t become a “nation of bloggers”. Agreed.

The question then is does Jobs mean that we really need an iNews, or was he simply using that to illustrate the point that news is lost and needs a common strategy that they can band around? I of course think that Jobs meant the latter: news outlets need to band together to create a common and standardized system by which they will make money off of their content.

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Shawn Blanc:

The “you should backup regularly” argument needs little coaxing. Everybody “knows” they should backup the problem is they don’t. A backup plan is only as good as its followthrough – which is why Time Machine is so epic. It backs up every hour for you. You don’t even know it’s running but you hear the hard drive spinning, and watch your system slow down for a few minutes.

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This is from my 5th post ever here at ForkBombr, in which I discussed a challenge from a friend to find the oldest existing article on Apple’s support site:

An interesting challenge, but an easy one at the end of the day. I found article 116 which explains how “to use Apple Writer with the Paymar Lower Case Adapter.” The oldest article I found was number 3, which reads:

The Apple II and IIe power supply is a switching power supply. It is designed to accept 107 to 135 volts from DC to 60 Hz.

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From the company’s FAQ page on cloud sync:

We will be doing a large scale test with quantifiable data to estimate server and bandwidth costs. It is not yet clear whether or not it will be necessary to pass any of those costs to the user base. This should not be taken as indication that there will, or will not, be any cost. A final decision will be made later based on the aforementioned testing.

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John Gruber:

EXT. MORNING, TUESDAY 5 JUNE 2007. 1 INFINITE LOOP, CUPERTINO.

A cab pulls in front a building. BRUSHED METAL exits the cab, stands tall, and walks to the door. He waves a badge at the door’s identification sensor. A red light flashes.

He tries the door. It’s locked. He rubs the badge directly against the sensor. Red again.

BRUSHED METAL: What the fuck?

Be sure not to miss the theme’s response to iTunes 5 and to iLife 06. These are probably the funniest things you’ll ever read about UI design.

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I’ll be posting links today from sold old sites, per Shawn’s great suggestion. There will be post every hour on the half hour, starting at 9:30 AM CST.

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Steve Jobs, in an open letter back in 2007:

I have received hundreds of emails from iPhone customers who are upset about Apple dropping the price of iPhone by $200 two months after it went on sale. After reading every one of these emails, I have some observations and conclusions.

First, I am sure that we are making the correct decision to lower the price of the 8GB iPhone from $599 to $399, and that now is the right time to do it. iPhone is a breakthrough product, and we have the chance to ‘go for it’ this holiday season. iPhone is so far ahead of the competition, and now it will be affordable by even more customers. It benefits both Apple and every iPhone user to get as many new customers as possible in the iPhone ’tent’. We strongly believe the $399 price will help us do just that this holiday season.

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Beth Harpaz for the AP:

Susan Maushart lived out every parent’s fantasy: She unplugged her teenagers.

For six months, she took away the Internet, TV, iPods, cell phones and video games. The eerie glow of screens stopped lighting up the family room. Electronic devices no longer chirped through the night like “evil crickets.” And she stopped carrying her iPhone into the bathroom.

Part of me envies those kids.

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Philip Elmer-DeWitt:

In our ranking of the best and worst Apple (AAPL) analysts for Q1 2011, which lists them based on how accurately they predicted seven key numbers — revenue, earnings, gross margins and unit sales — the unaffiliated analysts (blue in the chart at right) took 9 out of the 10 top spots.

The bottom 20 spots were all held by professionals working for the banks and brokerage houses. Taken as a whole, the numbers they sent their paying clients were off by a margin (9.04%) more than twice as big as those generated by the guys who do it for free (3.94%).

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The New York Times:

In summary, that’s a very smart smartphone we’ve just described: one that knows who owns it, unlocking just for them, one that can listen and respond to your questions, that can provide factual answers or point you to a related mobile app, one where your music library (and maybe more) is stored online, one that includes NFC for mobile payments, and one that works on whatever carrier you choose. Frankly, that sounds downright magical.

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Apple COO Tim Cook, on today’s Q1 2011 call:

Apple is doing its best work ever. We are all very happy with product pipeline and the team here has an unparalleled breadth and depth that Steve has driven in the company, and excellence has become a habit. We feel very very confident about the future of the company. I would also note that we’ve done outstanding job in our Mac: 19 straight quarters of outgrowing market, but still have a very low share. It would seem like still enormous opportunity there.

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The Apple PR machine has details.

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