Apple Archive

"Apple today announced executive management changes that will encourage even more collaboration between the Company's world-class hardware, software and services teams. As part of these changes, Jony Ive, Bob Mansfield, Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi will add more responsibilities to their roles. Apple also announced that Scott Forstall will be leaving Apple next year and will serve as an advisor to CEO Tim Cook in the interim." The most important thing to remember is that Ive will head interface design. Ive is supposedly not a big fan of skeuomorphism, so hopefully, iOS and OS X will move away from the My First Operating System-look. Expect the current popularity of skeumorphism - including elaborate reasoning as to why it's the best choice - to magically radically decline among Apple fans.

It's one of those days again: Apple held a product announcement today, announcing several new products. The most important of which was rumoured about for a long time now: a smaller iPad. It's called the iPad mini, and has the potential to become the best-selling iPad - and thus, the best selling tablet.

Surprise, surprise - Apple, by default, tracks web browsing behaviour and location to better serve you ads. You have to specifically opt out of this tracking per individual iOS device that you own. Now we know why Apple has no problem with turning on 'Do Not Track' and not accepting tracking cookies by default: it has no effect on them whatsoever, because iOS 6 has its own independent user tracking mechanisms. Unlike what the Apple pundits claim, it's got nothing to do with respect for user privacy at all. Well paint me red and call me a girl scout: company selling ads tracks user behaviour. Shocker, huh?

The Verge reviews the iPod touch, and it's as good as ever. "This year's iPod touch is the best one ever, without question - Apple updated all the right things, and by giving the touch a big screen and good camera has made this mini tablet a more versatile device than ever. As a gateway drug into the iOS ecosystem, it does a great job of showing off all the iOS 6 features and apps, on a really solid piece of hardware. It's also a great way to get into the huge iOS ecosystem without putting an expensive data plan on your account - and thanks to iMessage, FaceTime, and Skype, there's a lot of communicating you can do just over Wi-Fi." The iPod touch rarely gets the spotlight, but I think it's actually one of the best and most clever products in Apple's portfolio. Not only is it simply a fantastic product, it also has zero competition. My best friend is pretty much in love with her iPod touch, and it gives her everything a smartphone has to offer without the burden of expensive contracts. For people like her, who do not want a smartphone and prefer a sturdy Nokia feature phone, the touch is a godsend.

"Regarding the speech, it is amazing to hear Steve Jobs talk about some things that were not fully realized until only a handful of years ago. This talks shows us just how incredibly ahead of his time he was. I've listened to the entirety of the recording a few times now and have taken extensive notes, of which I will further elaborate on in future blog postings." This 1983 speech by Jobs is not as visionary as it seems. It's virtually identical to Alan Kay's mind-blowing Dynabook vision... From 1968. Kay even describes multitouch (p. 8) and Siri (p. 6). Not entirely coincidentally, Kay joined Apple in 1984. Look people, Steve Jobs was an incredibly talented individual that left a real imprint on the world - you don't need to make him larger than he was.

"Apple has changed its iOS developer guidelines, adding a clause (on September 12, a source tells me) that reads: 'Apps that display Apps other than your own for purchase or promotion in a manner similar to or confusing with the App Store will be rejected.' That's a change that could have wide-reaching effects, especially on promotion models that offer developers a paid top slot on app recommendation offerings like FreeAppADay, Daily App Dream and more." Weird clause. Doesn't really seem to address any issue I can think of.

"It seems like people really hate the new Maps in iOS 6. Now, I'm not disputing that Maps does give a lot of strange results to a lot of people all around the world, but for a large, large number of people, iOS 6 Maps has been a huge improvement over Google Maps. I'm talking about those of us who live in China (you know, the place with 1.3+ billion people and the second-largest economy in the world)." Fascinating.

"Apple today announced it has sold over five million of its new iPhone 5, just three days after its launch on September 21, and more than 100 million iOS devices have been updated with iOS 6, the world's most advanced mobile operating system." The last claim is debatable, but the figures are not - very impressive. Of course, do note that the iPhone 5 was available in more countries than the 4S in its first weekend, and if you take that into account, the iPhone 5 didn't do any better than the 4S at all (which doesn't negate the incredible sales - it just highlights the smartphone market's growth might be slowing). It's also lower than what analysts expected, but they're just monkeys throwing darts at figures anyway.

"Apple is one of the most secretive companies on the planet, so the Apple-Samsung trial was fascinating in that it lifted the veil of secrecy that typically shrouds Apple's operations. From marketing budgets to photos of never-before-seen iPhone prototypes, the evidence introduced at trial gave the world an unprecedented glimpse into the inner workings of Apple." Lots of stuff we already knew, but Yoni Heisler ties it all together nicely.

"Apple has just released the final Golden Master build of iOS 6 to developers. Although a public version won't be available for existing users until September 19th, developers can use the final version to test against iOS apps in preparation for the new iPhone 5." Developers, get cracking. You don't want your applications to show black bars on the iPhone 5, right?

Ah, skeuomorphism - my favourite punching bag. Austin Carr has spoken to former Apple designers and people within the company, and they're all confirming there's a rift within Cupertino between people who want to move away from skeuomorphism, and people who want to retain it as much as possible, and even want to expand it. Since I've long hoped for Apple to ditch this "visual masturbation", as one former Apple designer calls it, I'm happy to learn not the entire company supports skeuomorphism.

Written by Scott Cleland: "With so many fanboys spinning Silicon Valley history, it's sometimes easy to forget about the real chain of events that led to the ongoing Apple-Google thermonuclear war, how the romance turned to hate. This timeline presents an interesting case about why, despite patents and prior art, Steve Jobs had plenty of personal reasons to despise Schmidt, Page, and Brin." Cleland has a very, very good point; quite coherent and well-reasoned... That is, if you haven't got a single shred of historical sense and completely and utterly ignore the 30-odd years of mobile computing development that preceded our current crop of smartphones. It's hard not to be reminded of how certain groups of people dismiss millions of years of fossil records because this record inconveniences their argument. In any case, a comment on the article answered the question properly: "Jobs was a businessman. He was angry he was losing money. Simple."

"AT&T is defending its decision to limit the use of Apple's video chat feature, FaceTime, to its Mobile Share data plans by saying that the limitation does not violate the FCC's net neutrality rules. The company wrote in a blog post on Wednesday that some groups had 'another knee-jerk reaction' to AT&T's limitation, but the company argues that its decision meets all FCC requirements." You can expect Verizon to follow suit soon. Carriers don't do things like this unless they know the competition will tag along. This also happens to explain why Apple probably can't do much about it; if both Verizon and AT&T give FaceTime the boot like this, there's little Apple can do. For what it's worth - I'm happy The Netherlands (and Chile!) has unconditional net neutrality. This would not fly here, further illustrating the need for net neutrality.

Vlad Savov at The Verge: "Today's been rather a momentous day in the UK mobile arena, following local regulator Ofcom's approval of Everything Everywhere's plans to use existing spectrum to roll out LTE service early. Vodafone, O2 and Three have complained in unison against the market distortions that would result from one carrier having 4G while everyone else waits for an oft-delayed auction, but their biggest fear may yet remain unspoken: a de facto exclusive on the next iPhone."