This is a great intro from Benjamin Mayo, laying out the context of this excerpt from the upcoming book Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs, by Ken Kocienda.

This is Ken demoing one of the early iPhone keyboard candidates for Phil Schiller and then Tony Fadell. I found it a compelling read, a first person account from someone who was in the room, at least part of the time, as the new iPhone came into being.

On my must read list. The book ships September 4th. You can pre-order it on Amazon and iBooks.

Good for Verizon customers, but a solid promotional win for Apple Music.

I’m assuming Apple is counting these signups as paid memberships. Question is, how many of these folks will start paying once their 6 free months are up? I think more than a few. Good move on both sides here.

Chance Miller, 9to5Mac, does a nice sum up of Apple’s response to official questions from the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

My favorite quote:

The customer is not our product, and our business model does not depend on collecting vast amounts of personally identifiable information to enrich targeted profiles marketed to advertisers.

That says it all.

Interesting move. Warner Music Group comment on the sale:

This sale has nothing to do with our view of Spotify’s future. We’re hugely optimistic about the growth of subscription streaming, we know it has only just begun to fulfill its potential for global scale. We fully expect Spotify to continue to play a major role in that growth.

Odd to get out if their confidence is so high. I found the logic confusing. You can read more about the WMG earnings call here.

Robert Safian does a profile on the company and its leadership for Fast Company. Terrific read.

One side note: There are several quotes in the article from Tim Cook that have been making the rounds of the blogisphere. The quotes appear to be reworked from a long form interview Fast Company did with Cook back in February, called Why Apple Is The World’s Most Innovative Company. Also a terrific read.

Joe Hill’s Thrills:

That’s it. That’s what we know for sure. Everything else is conjecture. And in all the time since her death not one person has stepped forward to say, “I saw her. I met her a few weeks before she was found. I can tell you her name.”

But what if we’ve all seen her? What if she’s been in front of us for decades and we just never noticed?

Who’s in the mood for a ghost story?

Yeah. Okay.

So let’s talk about “Jaws”.

I followed this story from a link in the Washington Post and it’s fascinating.

Reading teachers across the state, from kindergarten to third grade, will get computer tablets from the state this school year in an effort to track and improve student reading.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Mark Johnson announced the plan Tuesday morning, holding up an iPad for the media, the governor and other members of North Carolina’s Council of State. Johnson’s office put the statewide pricetag for the devices at about $6 million. It didn’t immediately have a per-unit price to quote.

Congrats to North Carolina teachers. I believe iPads and other technology in the classroom is needed to prepare kids throughout their school lives.

Josh Centers talks through USB Restricted Mode, the politics of opening a backdoor into iOS, and the mechanics of breaking into an iPhone via the Lightning port.

Bottom line:

If USB Restricted Mode isn’t causing you any trouble, leave it on. Although it doesn’t offer complete protection against an alert attacker who can get access to your device quickly, it’s not worthless. Once your device has been locked for more than 60 minutes, nothing we know of can crack it.

Wonderful look at Apple’s iOS 12 rewrite of Books from MacStories’ Ryan Christoffel.

A personal note here: I have long purchased my books from Amazon’s Kindle Store, but this read, combined with my short-lived, unsatisfying dive into the Kindle Unlimited program has made me reconsider this habit.

One thing I look forward to, and not mentioned in the article, is the ability to share Apple’s Books with my family using iCloud Family Sharing. As a family, we often share books and we are already on this plan. [Amazon has something similar called Households, but it it is limited to two adults, so your kids will age out over time.] The family plan is a real boon for us. Something to consider.

One note on sharing from Ryan:

> One thing Goodreads offers that Apple Books does not is a social component. An Apple Music-style social sharing feature would be a nice fit for Books, but there’s nothing of the sort here.

I love the idea here. I am constantly looking for new read recommendations, especially from friends who share my taste in books. And I see “reading the same book at the same time” as a very social activity, something rife with potential that rarely gets any treatment in the tech universe. For those who enjoy discovering fresh reads, exploring novels online can be a great way to find captivating stories and share recommendations with fellow book lovers.

Nice backgrounder on Tim Cook from Emma Sims, Australia’s PC Authority. One highlight:

Under Cook’s stewardship, the firm has increased its donations to charity, something Cook has vowed to do himself; the CEO plans to donate his stock fortune in its entirety (thought to be in the region of $US120 million) to charity.

That’s commitment to one’s beliefs and yet another reason to admire Tim Cook.

[H/T Dman]

Mihir A. Desai, New York Times:

Sure, Apple produces innovative phones and laptops, but look inside its sleek exterior and you’ll find an elegant financial machine that has become the ideal for corporate America. Without investing significantly in hard assets, Apple spins cash and returns it to shareholders at a stunning rate. It’s difficult not to admire.

And:

Six years ago, the company owed no debt and had never undertaken a share buyback or paid dividends. Pressured by a shareholder revolt in 2013, it is now transformed.

And:

Apple has conducted its buybacks responsibly: It bought shares when they were relatively cheap, rewarding the patient shareholder. Other companies have not been so prudent, taking on debt to make ill-timed purchases of expensive shares speculated on by stock research tools rather than investing in growth opportunities. In some cases, they have done so simply to push up share prices so that management can meet goals for quarterly earnings or metrics that trigger compensation.

Good read. Apple is truly a remarkable company.

This is a fun read from Jean-Louis Gassée about Apple’s rise to the 13-digit club.

A few bits, just to whet your appetite:

> While Apple employees deserve to bask in the market’s recognition of their good work, the thing that really counts is “making a dent in the universe”, as Steve Jobs memorably said. To name but a few, the invention of products such as the Macintosh, the iPod, and the iPhone; the creation of attractive and lucrative platforms for app developers (who deserve their own recognition for helping Apple reach the big T); an unrivaled supply chain management system… These are the things that have propelled Apple, occasional warts included, to the top of the industry.

And:

> How did Apple get to $1T with such a poor price-to-earnings ratio (P/E)? As you no doubt already know, P/E is the result of dividing the share price by the earnings per share (EPS). The higher the ratio, the more willing investors, such as the ones on Corporate FX, are to pay a higher price for today’s shares, assured by the promise of substantially higher earnings (EPS) in the future. > > This is where we get into some intriguing comparisons. Microsoft’s P/E is a solid 48 and Alphabet’s hovers around 50…but Apple’s is a meager 17. Caricaturing just a bit: “Apple still trades like a steel mill going out of business.”

Ah, Jean-Louis, always a pleasure making my way through your Monday Notes.

Sand casting, while being flexible in both size and weight, is also flexible in the sense that it can be used to create prototypes of varying complexities. No other casting process allows for such a great number of complex shape components.

Facebook Inc. wants your financial data.

The social-media giant has asked large U.S. banks to share detailed financial information about their customers, including card transactions and checking-account balances, as part of an effort to offer new services to users. [A WSJ subscription is required to read the story].

No. NO!

Chicago Magazine:

In the age of Amazon, few things represent an ethos more diametrically opposed to the “everything store” than the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog. Typing “socks” into Amazon’s search bar yields a seemingly infinite number of options. But the Hammacher Schlemmer spring catalog supplement offers only the Best Circulation Enhancing Travel Socks and the Plantar Fasciitis Foot Sleeves, 45 pages apart. There are no algorithmically predicted product placements or targeted suggestions.

The mere existence of Hammacher Schlemmer these days invites some fair, yet pointed, questions. Who’s buying this stuff? immediately pops to mind. As does: How has the company lasted this long? And: What kind of person sees the Wearable Mosquito Net and thinks, I must have this?

I’ve never bought a thing from Hammacher Schlemmer but I’ve always loved the weirdness of their catalogs.

Buzz Feed:

Some of the world’s largest social media and tech companies kicked Alex Jones and his conspiracy-theory driven show, InfoWars, off their platforms on Monday after months of hand-wringing about how to handle a personality who claimed he was delivering news but didn’t deal in facts.

Apple moved first, striking the entire library for five of Infowars’ six podcasts from its iTunes and Podcasts apps. After that, platforms that have come under far more scrutiny for hosting Jones and his content — Facebook and YouTube — quickly followed suit after long and tortured deliberations. Spotify also did the same.

This will be an understandably controversial move that won’t hurt Jones in the long run.

Before you read on, take a look at that headline. Turns out, it’s a play on words and a reference to Tim Cook. The article is from 2008 and offers the conjecture that the then relatively unknown Tim Cook might be a replacement in the event Steve was forced to step down.

The most influential promoter of Steve Jobs’ indispensability, of course, is Steve Jobs. But another person who is very much with that program is the one executive who has actually filled in for Jobs as CEO. That would be Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer and its interim chief executive for two months in 2004, when Jobs was recovering from cancer surgery.

“Come on, replace Steve? No. He’s irreplaceable,” Cook said recently, according to a person who knows him well. “That’s something people have to get over. I see Steve there with gray hair in his 70s, long after I’m retired.”

Came across this on Reddit this morning, found it a compelling read, especially in trillion dollar retrospect.

Jack Nicas, New York Times:

For decades, the district south of downtown and alongside San Francisco Bay here was known as either Rincon Hill, South Beach or South of Market. This spring, it was suddenly rebranded on Google Maps to a name few had heard: the East Cut. > > The peculiar moniker immediately spread digitally, from hotel sites to dating apps to Uber, which all use Google’s map data. The name soon spilled over into the physical world, too. Real-estate listings beckoned prospective tenants to the East Cut. And news organizations referred to the vicinity by that term. > > The unexpected rebranding of this San Francisco neighborhood highlights the power of digital mapping platforms in shaping real estate markets and influencing perceptions. A single name change on Google Maps can alter the narrative surrounding an area, transforming it from a somewhat obscure locale into a sought-after destination almost overnight. > > For property developers and agents, this kind of shift underscores the importance of strategic marketing and adaptability. Leveraging such digital dynamics, especially through tools like motivated seller seo, can be a game-changer in targeting the right audience effectively. As neighborhoods are repackaged with new, appealing identities, the impact on rental and sales activity can be immediate and profound, driven by both curiosity and perceived value. > > The East Cut rebranding is a testament to how a fresh name, paired with effective search engine tactics, can generate buzz and redefine an entire district in the minds of consumers, making it essential for real estate marketers to keep pace with these digital influences and use them to their advantage.

And:

> The swift rebranding of the roughly 170-year-old district is just one example of how Google Maps has now become the primary arbiter of place names. With decisions made by a few Google cartographers, the identity of a city, town or neighborhood can be reshaped, illustrating the outsize influence that Silicon Valley increasingly has in the real world.

And:

> Yet how Google arrives at its names in maps is often mysterious. The company declined to detail how some place names came about, though some appear to have resulted from mistakes by researchers, rebrandings by real estate agents — or just outright fiction.

I find this amazing. The way I read this, the Google Maps team has the power to come up with new neighborhood names and make them official, all without consult.

Why is Google doing this? Is this an experiment in localized branding? Simple mistakes? As always, follow the money.

Terrific read, with contributions from core players such as Andy Hertzfeld, Woz, John Sculley, Tony Fadell, and many more.

Bloomberg:

In Bengaluru’s busy Madiwala neighborhood, a Poorvika Mobile World shop is plastered with posters for Samsung and Xiaomi and filled with inexpensive phones from brands like China’s Oppo and Vivo. Off to one side is a forlorn display stand with the iPhone 6, 6s, and X, the latter sitting upside down. Despite a zero-interest payment plan and cash-back incentives, Apple Inc. is lucky if the iPhones account for 25 of the 1,000 smartphones the store sells each month, says manager Nagaraja B.C., who goes by one name. “The average budget of a shopper is about 10,000 rupees,” he says, roughly $150. The iPhone SE, the cheapest Apple model, costs almost twice that. For $100, shoppers can get a Xiaomi Redmi 5A with a bigger battery, better camera, and greater storage capacity.

And:

For years, Indian consumers have complained that Siri can’t process their requests in local languages, they have no access to Apple Pay, and Apple Maps can’t give them turn-by-turn directions or identify points of interest.

Apple has long been the high-priced spread, with a focus on tapping the moneyed crowd. The first quote above implies that the pricey iPhone is not a financial match for this particular market. The second quote seems more a result of that mismatch.

Once Apple figures out how to build product that fits this market, once they see the potential revenue here, Apple will no doubt apply their resources to solve the localization problem.

I love the title, well said, though that’s just a small part of a large, complex picture.

Two highlights:

“Steve Jobs created a loyalty with users that is unparalleled in the consumer technology world. What Tim Cook has done, he’s built a loyalty with shareholders,” Sculley said on “Squawk on the Street.”

And:

Whereas Jobs cultivated customer loyalty, based on incredible products, Cook used the Apple reputation to build a “brilliant business model,” Sculley said, adding that instead of inventing the best, new technology, Cook buys back stocks, hordes cash, and gives out dividends.

Read the article, watch the video.

Go into the Story:

100+ scripts made available by studios and production companies. Here are active studio and production company links to download scripts from the last 8 years. Since these links come and go, I would strongly recommend downloading them now.

I love reading movie scripts and there are a bunch here, including for the “Steve Jobs” movie, you can download as PDFs.

The Washington Post:

Last week, Tesla loaned me a Model 3 to review for The Washington Post. Over three days, I navigated the steep learning curve to operate this iPhone with wheels, and ended up convinced it is the car of the future. I also came away a bit concerned about our future.

Even if you’re not interested in owning a Model 3, don’t believe in electric cars, don’t like CEO Elon Musk, or don’t believe Tesla will survive to produce them for $35,000, Tesla is setting the agenda for the auto industry. The Model 3, through cellular, WiFi and Bluetooth connections, is constantly online in ways mass vehicles haven’t been before. Its computer, dashboard, key, motor, brakes, battery, power plug, and cameras (I could go on) are all sending and receiving data. Tesla is turning the car into the largest connected device you’ll own.

As a motorcyclist, this car and others that will come after it, terrify me. The “iPhone on wheels” is an awful and dangerous idea. Watch the video to get an idea of how obscenely huge and distracting that screen is.

Lisa Brennan-Jobs:

I tiptoed into my father’s room, careful to step over the creaky floorboard at the entrance. This room had been his study, when he could still climb the stairs, but he slept here now.

He was propped up in bed, wearing shorts. His legs were bare and thin as arms, bent up like a grasshopper’s.

Segyu Rinpoche stood beside him. He’d been around recently when I came to visit. A short Brazilian man with sparkling brown eyes, the Rinpoche was a Buddhist monk with a scratchy voice who wore brown robes over a round belly. We called him by his title. Near us, a black canvas bag of nutrients hummed with a motor and a pump, the tube disappearing somewhere under my father’s sheets.

This is an excerpt from Lisa’s upcoming memoir, Small Fry. I struggled a bit to read it. Not because of the prose, which is excellent, but simply because Steve means so much to me and I’m reliving him leaving.

Rachel Slade, Medium:

Improbably, AlterEgo, the soundless, voiceless, earbud-less device he’d been working on for the last two years had become adept enough at reading his thoughts that he could use it to order an Uber without saying a word.

And:

Kapur wants to perfect a device that allows users to communicate with A.I. as effortlessly as one’s left brain talks to one’s right brain, so that humans can integrate the power of the Internet into their thinking at every level.

And:

One night, Kapur and his brother were testing the device in their Cambridge apartment. Kapur was wearing the device and Shreyas was monitoring the computer screen. They’d rigged the device to track signals in real time so that Shreyas could note the exact moment it picked up something, if anything.

It was getting late. Kapur had been speaking silently into the device for a couple of hours — having programmed it to understand just two words: yes and no — without any meaningful results.

Then Shreyas thought he saw something. A blip on the screen.

To me, this is the sort of device that Big Tech ought to be building, something that allows you to interface with your personal AI and with the world it connects to, all without saying a word, by purposeful thinking.

There are dangers, of course, as those ad companies do their level best to connect directly with your brain. But still, I find this fascinating.

Bloomberg:

Now the business founded by Steve Jobs and his pal Steve Wozniak in a Los Altos garage in 1976 truly stands alone. Apple Inc.’s market capitalization was a paltry $3 billion when Jobs returned to the wounded company in 1996, after it had acquired his startup, NeXT. Passing the $1 trillion mark a little more than two decades later puts an exclamation point at the end of a remarkable run of success—one that started with Jobs’s introduction of the iMac, iPod, iPad, and, especially, the iPhone, and was extended by his successor, Tim Cook, who now presides over the most valuable business in modern history.

And:

Jobs took the stage in January 2007, during a now legendary appearance at MacWorld in San Francisco, and said in his usual pugilistic style that smartphones “are not so smart, and they’re not so easy to use.” The iPhone, he told us, “works like magic.”

Terrific read, though one with its share of snark, like so:

Thus was Apple’s winning formula refined: slick, simple products with hefty price tags, accompanied by splashy press events, mesmerizing advertising, and the numbing repetition of words like “amazing” and “phenomenal.”

And:

While the iPhone has altered daily life so much that no one remembers life before it, Apple has also persuaded customers to embrace other inventions they never knew they wanted, such as connected watches that buzz and beep (to cure the distraction of the phone, Apple says) and wireless dongles that hang ridiculously from their ears.

Still, an interesting essay, lots of images of people staring at their phones.

Barbara Davidson, NetCredit:

The United States is a comparatively young country, but one with a rich and diverse history. From the ancient villages of New Mexico’s Pueblo people and the early Spanish settlers in Florida, to the Russian traders of Alaska and 19th-century missionaries in Utah, each of the 50 states has its own story to tell.

Bucket list for me. I’d love to visit every one of these.