An Interview With Jony Ive
The Telegraph has a great interview with Apple design guru Jony Ive.
My favorite part:
Ive has achieved an awful lot and still has a long career ahead of him. Even so, a knighthood is a good time to take stock. If he was to be remembered for just one of his Apple designs, I ask, which one would he pick?
There is the long pause. “It’s a really tough one. A lot does seem to come back to the fact that what we’re working on now feels like the most important and the best work we’ve done, and so it would be what we’re working on right now, which of course I can’t tell you about.”
Digitimes And Apple Rumors
Alex Heath, in a story titled, “Digitimes: We’re Sorry We Get All Our Apple Rumors Wrong” at Cult of Mac:
Digitimes has been one of the main sources of Apple rumors over the last several years, but anyone who follows Apple will tell you that the Taiwanese publication is more often wrong than right.
Heath wasn’t kidding when he said “main source.” A quick Google site search returned over 3,200 results for “Digitimes + rumor” on Cult of Mac.
I’m sure that number will be bigger if I run my search again in a year.
For someone who cares so much about “journalistic integrity,” Hackett didn’t bother to skim down a few more paragraphs and include where I say:
Cult of Mac has continued to cover Digitimes rumors throughout the years because we want to let our readers know about the information that’s out there, but that’s never stopped us from being skeptical. Our faith in Digitimes has significantly waned over the years, but we do what we can to let you know when a story seems credible or not.
This comes down to a fundamental difference in how people digest Apple rumors. At CoM, we label them as [Rumor] and try to make sure readers know how they fit into the bigger picture of what Apple is/isn’t actually up to. When it’s Digitimes, we frequently add a line about the skeptical nature of the source.
People want to know the rumors. “Journalists” can’t wrap their minds around this for whatever reason. There’s a difference between “news,” and “rumors.” Reporting rumors as hard news (say, being on par with Apple issuing a press release) is a problem. Reporting rumors themselves (with context) is not inherently evil at all. In fact, people like it. Heck, it can be fun.
I’m frankly shocked at how viciously certain bloggers and “journalists” devote time and energy to griping about the rumor mill.
Me? I try to not stress about stuff that doesn’t matter. I hear you live longer that way.
“not sent from my iPhone”
This is a wonderfully cute “I love you” card for any Apple geek. I’d tell you to grab one now on etsy, but I just bought the last one! ;-)
The New York Times And Its Apple Smear-Fest
In the next installment of The New York Times ‘iEconomy’ series, NYT reporters will take an investigative look behind the questionable cooking ingredients used at Caffe Macs in Cupertino.
But seriously, it’s starting to look like the Times just wants to drag Apple through the mud because it can. Aren’t there bigger fish to fry out there? Why create issues where there are none?
O, right… Apple is the most valuable company on earth. Someone has to pick on the big kid.
The 3 Worst Apple Articles You’ll Read This Week
I don’t usually do this type of thing, and I’ve already stated my opposition to negativity on the internet, but this opportunity was too good to pass up. You see, Apple announced a new iPad Wednesday. And not just any old iPad, but the new iPad. It’s a beautiful tablet that will undoubtedly make oodles of cash. (I’ve already pre-ordered a 32GB 4G model on Verizon, so I know Apple has at least made $800 off me.)
After an Apple announcement, a flurry of pundit reactions and analyst forecasts are published that are about as predictable as predictable gets. The naysayers come out of the woodwork to frantically wave their arms and warn us all that Apple is on the precipice of destruction. Never mind the fact that Apple is the most valuable company on earth or that iPhone and iPad sales continue to skyrocket. No, Apple is bleeding its magical mojo. It can’t maintain its lead for long, because its corporate culture is crumbling from within after the death of Steve Jobs.
It’s always amazed me when writers who don’t actually understand Apple at all feel the need to tell the world what it’s doing wrong. I believe some of them do it because they know it will generate lots of attention and pageviews. Others probably write because they’re frustrated with Apple’s success and, like a middle school bully, they can’t wait to see it fall off the monkey bars. What’s the fun of covering technology if you can’t “find chinks” in the armor of the biggest tech company’s armor?
With that said, here are the 3 worst articles you’ll read about Apple and the new iPad this week. In no particular order:
- The always-comical ZDNet: “The sheer and utter failure of Apple’s online store” by Jason D. O’Grady
- Jolie O’Dell of VentureBeat really took the cake with “Apple’s press conference showed a brand unraveling”
- The ‘most ridiculous headline followed by most outlandish article’ award goes to “Pitching the New iPad: Is Tim Cook the New John Sculley?” by Rob Enderle of IT Business Edge
There you have it: the best of the crap.
And all three of the above writers have probably pre-ordered the new iPad.
iPad HD
I was sitting at a table during dinner tonight with a group of people that are not tech enthusiasts. They don’t follow the Apple rumor mill and they don’t know the difference between IPO and ISO. They are the kind of people Apple markets to: average consumers who like technology that works and makes their lives better.
After reading reactions this afternoon from bloggers and Apple fans I follow on Twitter about the possibility of an iPad HD, I decided to ask the people at the table what they thought about the name. When asked whether “iPad 3’ or “iPad HD” made more sense in light of the high-quality Retina display, every single one of them said they preferred iPad HD.
Why? Because it just makes sense.
The average consumer doesn’t care that a Retina display iPad is actually leagues beyond the quality of true HD. I’ve heard arguments saying “HD” iPad apps in the App Store would create confusion. Why on earth would playing Angry Birds HD on your iPad HD be confusing? The two suffixes are actually the same, therefore connecting the experience for the user. When developers update their apps for the iPad’s Retina display, buying a “HD” app would cause me to think I’m downloading an app optimized for my shiny new tablet, and I would be doing exactly that because those apps will be updated with Retina graphics.
Then there’s the chance Apple sticks to its numbering guns and calls it the iPad 3. Either option would work, and it depends entirely on how Apple wants to market the product. In my opinion, there’s nothing confusing about marketing a Retina display-equipped iPad HD to the average consumer.
Click the link to read the rest of my post on the possibility of an iPad HD on Wednesday.
M.I.C Gadget on the iPad 3:
“We have asked our sources, and they have assured us volume buttons will be on the device.”
How assuring.
The Mountain Lion is Here
Apple stealthily announced OS X Mountain Lion to the world this morning. I’ve been reading reactions and reviews all day, and the best post is definitely by John Gruber:
There many new features, I’m told, but today they’re going to focus on telling me about ten of them. This is just like an Apple event, I keep thinking. Just like with Lion, Mountain Lion is evolving in the direction of the iPad. But, just as with Lion last year, it’s about sharing ideas and concepts with iOS, not sharing the exact same interaction design or code. The words “Windows” and “Microsoft” are never mentioned, but the insinuation is clear: Apple sees a fundamental difference between software for the keyboard-and-mouse-pointer Mac and that for the touchscreen iPad. Mountain Lion is not a step towards a single OS that powers both the Mac and iPad, but rather another in a series of steps toward defining a set of shared concepts, styles, and principles between two fundamentally distinct OSes.
MG Siegler, Jason Snell, and The Verge also provided great coverage. We’ve been cranking out posts like crazy at Cult of Mac all day, and I wrote a little piece about Apple’s approach to iOS and OS X moving forward. My coworker Buster wrote a great review of the new Messages for Mac as well.
It’s been an interesting day.
How To Write About Apple And Not Sound Like An Idiot
A great piece by Chris Rawson at TUAW:
So many bloggers (and an exponentially greater number of commenters) are used to seeing Apple as this grand dystopian force in their lives that literally everything the company does must have some mustache-twirling, villainous motivation behind it. That mindset is both sad and dumb.
Some other things to add to this post: Don’t ever say that Apple is pressured to make products like its competitors (especially Samsung). Don’t ever say that Apple cares about market share. Don’t say that “Steve Jobs wouldn’t have let ______ happen” for the next several years at least. If you do say those things, you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
My New Favorite App: SpotON Radio For iPhone
I recently caved and bought a premium Spotify subscription. This means that I get millions of streaming tracks on all my devices for only $9.99/month. It’s a much more fluid experience than using iTunes Match, and I like having the peace of mind that I have instant access to any song I could want to play (most of the time).
SpotON Radio is a gorgeous app for the iPhone that lets you create and listen to Spotify radio stations. It’s like Pandora, only you can skip as many tracks as you want and add them to your Spotify playlists. I love the entire experience, and the app is so well designed that I find myself using it more than my stock Music app.
The best part of all? SpotON Radio is totally free in the App Store. What are you waiting for?
Apple Has Helped Create 466,000 U.S. Jobs Since 2008
Apple recently announced that it has payed over $4 billion to third-party developers since the launch of the App Store on July 10, 2008. Apps are an essential part of the modern smartphone, and Apple continues to pave the way with the growing success of the App Store year after year.
Sparked by Apple’s initiative, 466,000 U.S jobs have been created through what is now called the “App Economy.” Jobs include those that now develop for other platforms, like Android and Windows Phone.
