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apple

Technology

December 6, 2013

Google why so evil?

What I do have issue with is that Google has been hiding behind the “Do No Evil” moniker for most of its life and really with what has been transpiring in the last few years, Google really needs to come clean and drop that part of its mission statement.

Daniel goes on to list a number of valid points where Google is up to no good with your personal data. I highly recommend this article, so bookmark it.

Microsoft ends Windows 8 retail sales

But officially, the major PC vendors — like Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo — will discontinue most Windows 7 PC sales in October 2014, making Windows 8 and its follow-ups, including Windows 8.1, the default.

This makes me vomit. I work in health care and very few things make me sick, so this means something. I feel so sorry for every future PC owner who is now going to be forced to use Windows 8.

74% of Apple devices running iOS 7

Android, on the other hand, suffers from much worse device fragmentation. Just 1.1% of Android devices are currently running Kit Kat, the latest operating system.

Any OS developer would kill to have this kind of adoption rate.

Technology

November 6, 2013

Our business does not depend on collecting personal data

Foremost, the document explains Apple’s philosophy on customer privacy. “… Our business does not depend on collecting personal data,”* the report said in an obvious poke at Google, Facebook and others. “We have no interest in amassing personal information about our customers. We protect personal conversations by providing end-to-end encryption over iMessage and FaceTime. We do not store location data, Maps searches, or Siri requests in any identifiable form.”

This is why I love and use Apple’s products and services. It is a huge contrast to other companies such as Google, which rely heavily on user data to sell advertisements.

Charter CEO ‘Surprised’ Users Want Broadband With No TV

Charter losing 27,000 TV subscribers down from 71,000 last year. The company also managed to add 86,000 broadband subscribers, and broadband revenues jumped 23% to $575 million courtesy of price hikes.

“I would say that the one thing that surprised me…is that our broadband-only growth has been greater than I thought it would be,” said Rutledge.

I am not surprised to see the increasing trend of customers getting sick of the traditional TV business model. This is a reason why streaming services such as Netflix are skyrocketing. People would rather just have unlimited bandwidth and faster download/upload speeds and watch what they want, when they want. Hopefully, Apple is able to disrupt the television industry like they did with the music one.

The Movie Deal Netflix Wants to Make

While releasing those titles day-and-date with cinemas would be a tall order, Sarandos wants them 45 days or even 30 days after their theatrical bow.

This would definitely rock the industry. There subscription rate would increase even faster.

Microsoft Is Making An Astonishing $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties

This money, says Sherlund, helps Microsoft hide the fact that its mobile and Xbox groups are burning serious cash.

For the past few years, Microsoft reported the revenue and operating losses of Entertainment and Devices, which was the group that housed Xbox, Windows Phone, and those Android royalty payments.

That group always seemed to be profitable, but Sherlund says it’s largely because of the Android money.

Sherlund says that if you back out the Android profits, Microsoft is probably losing $2.5 billion on Skype, Xbox, and Windows Phone. Of that, $2 billion in losses are attributable to the Xbox platform.

That’s some serious royalty dough. And an awesome photo of Ex-CEO Steve Ballmer. Maybe he didn’t do such as horrendous job after all.

Burger King’s Big King: A Big Mac By Any Other Name? 

Eric Hirschhorn, Burger King’s Chief Marketing Officer for North America insists the new burger is different than any other because of “the unique fire-grilling” for which Burger King is known.

If imitation is a form of flattery, then McDonald’s is basking in adoration from its much smaller competitor. Like McDonald’s, Burger King has rolled out salads, fruit smoothies, frappes, chicken nuggets and wraps in recent months.

Burger King is pretty much like the Samsung and Google or the fast food industry.

Inspirational

Remembering Steve

Sometimes I still can’t believe it happened. But today marks the second anniversary of the passing of Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Inc. No one can ever replace someone like Steve and my Thank You continues forward.

Steve appointed Tim Cook as Apple CEO shortly before his death. Since then, the leadership team at Apple has brought forth iOS 7, iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, iPad mini and record breaking sales. Yesterday Cook issued the following letter to his staff:

Team-
Tomorrow marks the second anniversary of Steve’s death. I hope everyone will reflect on what he meant to all of us and to the world. Steve was an amazing human being and left the world a better place. I think of him often and find enormous strength in memories of his friendship, vision and leadership. He left behind a company that only he could have built and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple. We will continue to honor his memory by dedicating ourselves to the work he loved so much. There is no higher tribute to his memory. I know that he would be proud of all of you.
Best,
Tim

Also, The New York Times published a piece regarding the time leading up to the famous introduction of the original iPhone back at MacWorld 2007.

The impact has been not only economic but also cultural. Apple’s innovations have set off an entire rethinking of how humans interact with machines. It’s not simply that we use our fingers now instead of a mouse. Smartphones, in particular, have become extensions of our brains. They have fundamentally changed the way people receive and process information. Ponder the individual impacts of the book, the newspaper, the telephone, the radio, the tape recorder, the camera, the video camera, the compass, the television, the VCR and the DVD, the personal computer, the cellphone, the video game and the iPod. The smartphone is all those things, and it fits in your pocket. Its technology is changing the way we learn in school, the way doctors treat patients, the way we travel and explore. Entertainment and media are accessed and experienced in entirely new ways.

I wanted to find something special that showed off the genius of Jobs. And I ended up watching a clip I’ve never seen before. This is a 20-minute documentary-style video observing how Jobs brainstormed with his team at NeXT, the company he started after getting fired from Apple.

And what surprised me was that under his light blue untucked dress shirt lies the notorious black turtleneck. In this video, I was intrigued at the 17:40 mark when he talks about not looking too much at the “smaller battles”, but to focus on the war at large.

Personally, Apple made an impact on my life as I clearly remember the first video game that I ever loved. It was a game called Treasure Mountain that I played on a Macintosh in grade school.

Again, thanks for everything you contributed to us Steve.

Technology

iPhone Sales Top 9 Million

Apple’s iPhone 5s and 5c break a record and sells 9 million units

“This is our best iPhone launch yet?more than nine million new iPhones sold?a new record for first weekend sales,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “The demand for the new iPhones has been incredible, and while we’ve sold out of our initial supply of iPhone 5s, stores continue to receive new iPhone shipments regularly. We appreciate everyone’s patience and are working hard to build enough new iPhones for everyone.”

Congrats Apple! I can’t wait to get my 5s in few weeks.

Asymco has a fantastic graph showing how significant the past weekend was for Apple. It even compares it to the competition. Localytics found that the 5s outsold the 5c by 3.5x. This shows that Apple doesn’t even really need to make a “cheap” device.

A German hacker group “breaks” into Touch ID

CCC, one the world’s largest and most respected hacking groups, posted a video on its website that appeared to show somebody accessing an iPhone 5S with a fabricated print. The site described how members of its biometrics team had cracked the new fingerprint reader, one of the few major high-tech features added to the latest version of the iPhone.

It doesn’t look that convincing…but if this is correct, Apple’s moved the bar to breaking into those phones from stealing the phone and a 4 digit (or no passcode) to having:
–  Stolen iPhone
– a 2400 dpi resolution image of the correct fingerprint (where the hell will they get this?) 
– a 1200 dpi laser printer & transparent paper
– Pink latex milk or white woodglue
– a non-trivial amount of time

That doesn’t seem like a real “hack” to me. A real hack would have been something like opening control centre, going to camera, then bypassing the passcode.

Additionally, Touch ID is completely misunderstood by many critics. The point of Touch ID was to help solve the problem that many users go about their daily lives without a passcode. Which is the worst possible scenario. Touch ID solves it to a great extent for general consumers.

Steve Jobs’ childhood home may become historical site

Jobs moved to the house with his foster parents as a 7th grader, and lived there through high school.

In the attached garage, he and Steve Wozniak toiled to assemble the first 50 Apple 1 computers. The pair sold them to Paul Terrell’s Byte Shop in Mountain View for $500 each.

A version of the ranch-style house appears in the recent “Jobs” biopic with Ashton Kutcher.

Nine months later, in 1977, Apple Computer Co. was formally established and moved its operations to nearby Cupertino.

Good for Steve and his family. They deserve this.

 

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