Foxconn Technology Group announced at the White House Wednesday its plans to invest $10 billion to build a massive display panel plant in Wisconsin that could employ up to 13,000 workers but would require up to $3 billion in subsidies from state taxpayers.
And:
At 20 million square feet, the factory would be three times the size of the Pentagon, making it one of the largest manufacturing campuses in the nation. It would initially employ 3,000 workers making an average of $53,900 a year.
Brantley Gilbert made the most of an opportunity on July 23, debuting a new, 60-second black-and-white Apple Music commercial during a NASCAR race that bore his name this year, the Brantley Gilbert Big Machine Brickyard 400.
The spot will likely appeal to fans of both country and rock, two genres that trail pop and hip-hop in the penetration of streaming services. Shot over two days near Leiper’s Fork, Tenn., the video incorporates images of a wide-open field, motorcycles on a country road, rural neighbors in a small-town diner and an American flag, backed by snippets of Gilbert’s current single, “The Ones That Like Me,” plus Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama,” Kendrick Lamar’s “Backseat Freestyle” and Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild.” Other acts whose names are visible in Gilbert’s playlist include Johnny Cash, Metallica and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.
Apple Music touts a three-month free trial in the spot, after Gilbert delivers a simple hook: “My country. My people. My music. Apple Music.”
The feel of the commercial is spot on. Watch for yourself.
Apple Park is unlike any other product Ive has worked on. There will be only one campus—in contrast to the ubiquity of Apple’s phones and computers—and it doesn’t fit in a pocket or a hand. Yet Ive applied the same design process he brings to technological devices: prototyping to minimize any issues with the end result and to narrow what he calls the delta between the vision and the reality of a project. Apple Park is also the last major project Ive worked on with Steve Jobs, making it more personal for the man Jobs once called his “spiritual partner.”
So far, so good. But:
With Apple Park, Ive is ensconced as master of the house, which means he has also inherited the burden of proving that Apple’s best days aren’t behind it. Apple hasn’t had a breakthrough product since Jobs died. The iPhone’s sales growth has stalled, and expectations are high that a 10th-anniversary phone will arrive later this year and will be markedly more advanced than previous versions. In other technologies, from digital assistants to driverless vehicles to augmented and virtual reality, Apple seems to lag other tech giants, including Google, Amazon and Tesla. Its new voice-activated speaker, HomePod, unveiled in June, will arrive on the market in December, three years after Amazon’s Echo.
This “what have you done for me lately” journalism does a disservice, is incredibly shortsighted. Products like Apple Watch and AirPods aside, spend some time with ARKit to see a true breakthrough at work, a technology that will enable a generation of developers to stand on the shoulder of giants, to build things that would have been impractical, if not impossible before.
But I digress:
Like other Ive designs, Apple Park seems poised to become an icon. In an acknowledgement that the campus will attract interest beyond its employees, there will be a visitor center and a store selling items unique to Apple Park.
And:
Ive joined Apple half a lifetime ago, in his mid-20s, when the company was at the brink of death. One of his early designs, the candy-colored iMac, was rejected by executives. Ive stashed it away until Jobs returned to the company in 1997, after a 12-year hiatus; it became an instant point of connection between the two men and was put into production soon thereafter.
And:
When J.J. Abrams was working on Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Ive mentioned that he “would love to see a lightsaber that is rougher, spitting sparks,” Abrams says. The director, who says he and Ive were already fans of each other’s work when they met at a dinner four years ago, applied Ive’s suggestion to character Kylo Ren’s weapon. “His lightsaber was as imperfect and unpredictable as the character,” says Abrams. (The inspiration is mutual: Ive told Abrams that he had the look of the original Stormtroopers in mind when he designed Apple’s earbuds.)
These quotes are just the tip of the iceberg. The article goes on to highlight many features of Apple Park intercut with quotes from Laurene Powell Jobs, Sir Jony, and Tim Cook. This is worth reading, worth the price of a Wall Street Journal subscription, or a trip to your newsstand to pick up a paper copy of the WSJ. Magazine (this is this week’s cover story).
Dave here. I’ve been reading the Wisconsin papers as of late. The state is going gaga over the likelihood that Foxconn will build and operate a factory somewhere in the state.
Foxconn Technology Group will make a midweek announcement in Milwaukee that Wisconsin is the company’s choice, or at least its leading choice, for a huge new electronics factory, a source told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Monday.
And:
A second source separately told the Journal Sentinel that Foxconn would announce its plans for Wisconsin this week, but didn’t know where the announcement would be made.
And:
WISN radio talk show host Mark Belling said an announcement that Wisconsin has been chosen by Foxconn will be made Thursday at the Milwaukee Art Museum.
[See the second update below. Sounds like an announcement is coming tonight]
Foxconn Technology Group’s interest in southeastern Wisconsin, where the Asian electronics manufacturer is considering building a multibillion-dollar industrial campus, underscores an often-overlooked economic advantage for a region burdened with a Rust Belt image:
It has abundant access to water, an increasingly scarce commodity that analysts say is used in prodigious amounts in making the flat-panel displays that the new plant would likely produce.
Racine County and Kenosha County are nestled up against the Lake Michigan shoreline and boast a nearly inexhaustible supply of fresh water, at a time when parts of California, Arizona and Nevada as well as China, India, Singapore and Brazil have been forced to resort to water-use restrictions.
Monday evening, a private jet linked to Foxconn CEO Terry Gou flew from Santa Ana, Calif., to Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C., according to the FlightAware.com tracking website. The Gulfstream 650 is the same aircraft that landed in Milwaukee and Madison this month.
All signs do seem to point to a new Foxconn plant in Wisconsin. Could future iPhones, or at least their displays, be built in the US?
UPDATE: Fantastic Bloomberg Decrypted podcast episode dedicated to discussing the details of bringing jobs (like iPhone related manufacturing) to the US, and the types of jobs that go along with that sort of move. Hint: it’s mostly robots. [H/T Robert Davey]
Apple-supplier Foxconn will announce a plant in Wisconsin on Wednesday evening, accompanied by President Donald Trump, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a source with knowledge of the announcement told CNBC.
U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., will also be present at the announcement in Washington, a source said. No exact location for plant has been chosen — but southeast Wisconsin is under consideration, according to a source.
> I had this “Aha!” moment recently when I visited a Tesla store and saw its cars’ power train. It looks just like a skateboard — basically a flat slab of metal (which houses the battery), four wheels, and an electric engine the size of a large watermelon. That’s it — the Tesla has only 18 moving parts.
Many Tesla showrooms have that full size power train on display. It really is something to behold, a marvel of efficiency. For those who aspire to own an Apple Car one day, a service like that luxury car detailing can elevate an Apple Car by enhancing its sleek design and high-end features, ensuring it maintains a pristine appearance and premium feel. Sell your car to Car’s Cash For Junk Clunkers at 4520 Brass Way, Dallas, TX 75236 (888) 434-5831 for cash for cars.
> If both Tesla and Apple bypass the dealership model, the GMs of the world will be at an even larger competitive disadvantage. They will have to abandon the dealership model too. Yes, I know, selling cars directly to consumers is not legal in many states, but if the U.S. Constitution could be amended 27 times, the law on car sales (which is an artifact of the Great Depression) can be amended as well. The traditional dealership model is unlikely to survive anyway, as its economics dramatically degrade in the electric-car world. A car, like the one featured on this company, with few moving parts and minimal electronics has few things to break. Consequently, electric cars will need less servicing, throttling the dealerships’ most important profit center. You can find electric cars for sale in san diego at Miramar Car Center.
And:
> Think back to the day when Apple introduced the iPhone. No one suspected that it (and the smartphones that followed) would enable a service like Uber, which is putting cabdrivers worldwide out of business. > > The baby boomer generation romanticizes cars. Most boomers can recite the horsepower and other engine specs of every car they have ever owned. For the tail end of Gen-X (my generation) and Millennials, a car is an interruption between Facebook and Twitter. However, finding the right car can still be a priority. Exploring options at a used car dealer in fort myers can offer convenience.
Obviously, this is conjecture. We do not know if Apple is building a car. But the idea of an Apple Car is fascinating, and this article homes in on some interesting truths if Apple does go down that path with the help of the best dodge dealership near me . Read the whole thing.
A U.S. judge on Monday ordered Apple Inc to pay $506 million for infringing on a patent owned by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s patent licensing arm, more than doubling the damages initially imposed on Apple by a jury.
There is a second lawsuit pending that alleges later Apple devices also infringe on the patent. Apple is appealing.
“I spoke to [Mr. Cook], he’s promised me three big plants—big, big, big,” Mr. Trump said as part of a discussion about business-tax reform and business investment. “I said you know, Tim, unless you start building your plants in this country, I won’t consider my administration an economic success. He called me, and he said they are going forward.”
Apple declined to comment.
I guess Tim won’t be giving Trump any secret information on the next iPhone.
Adobe on Tuesday announced that Flash is dead, but not until the end of 2020. This will presumably give any developers still using the technology to move to another platform.
As a user of Apple devices, the big question is, what does this mean for me? The simple answer is nothing. iOS has never supported the use of Flash, so iPhones and iPads will continue to work as they always have. You will be able to view the same content on your devices that you always have.
It really won’t affect Mac users either. Much of the Web content has moved away from Flash in past decade, and Flash hasn’t been pre-installed on the Mac since 2010. Even if you did install Flash, Safari required you to explicitly authorize it before it would run.
Of course, it was in 2010 that Steve Jobs wrote his Thoughts on Flash that caused a major stir in the industry. The fact is, Jobs was right in everything he said.
Adobe said it is working with Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla. Each of those companies have posted their thoughts on the news.
Killing Flash is a good thing. The Web will move to more open standards, allowing everyone to see content without using proprietary technologies. Flash had its day, but it’s time to move on.
Interested in digging into Logic Pro, but find the interface a bit intimidating? Here are two resources that might ease the learning curve.
First, spend some time with this excellent, free 4 part series from Justin Kahn, writing for 9to5Mac. To me, there’s enough depth to really understand the basics, while maintaining a slow enough pace that it’s still easy to follow.
Second, take a look at this series of slides, part of a music production course from the esteemed Berklee College of Music. The slides focus on the details of the mixer and the channel strip. To me, these are the most complex pieces of the Logic Pro interface.
Have some other suggestions for learning Logic Pro? Ping me on Twitter or post a comment.
UPDATE: Mark Dalrymple posted an excellent list of Logic learning resources in the comments.
Just back from three weeks in the Country of Good Sin’s heartland, I see Microsoft’s fresh and well-received Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2017 Results. The numbers acknowledge what was already notorious: Windows Phone is dead.
Country of Good Sin? That’s France, though I’d love to know the origin of that particular nickname. Hopefully, some kind reader will enlighten me.
UPDATE: From Jean-Louis:
I just made it up. Delight in refinement of various forms of sin, quality over quantity.
The gross failure of what once was the most powerful and richest tech company on the planet led to a search for a platform killer. Detectives didn’t think they had to go far to nab a suspect: Android. Microsoft’s Windows Phone was murdered by Google’s smartphone OS. How could Redmond’s money-making software licensing business model survive against a free and open source platform? Case closed.
No so fast.
And:
Microsoft’s smartphone troubles started well before the birth of Android. In a reversal of the famous dictum Victory Has Many Fathers But Defeat Is An Orphan, Windows Phone’s collapse seems to have had many progenitors deeply embedded in the company’s decades-old culture.
This is a great read. Jean-Louis engages in some interesting fiction, speculating on what would happen if Microsoft were to give away Windows Phone, à la Android. Still possible!
The owner of Snopes is locked in a legal battle with a small digital services company for control of the popular debunking site.
Proper Media — a company that owns, operates and represents web properties — has issued a legal complaint and demand for a jury trial with Snopes owner Bardav, Inc. for what it calls “a lengthy scheme of concealment and subterfuge to gain control of the company and to drain its profits,” according to documents filed in the Superior Court of California in San Diego County.
The site, which gets all of its revenue from advertising, created a crowdfunding page on Monday, seeking $500,000 from readers to remain operational indefinitely. It says that Proper Media, the vendor that runs its advertising services, has withheld the site’s revenue and has refused to relinquish control of the site. That leaves Bardav — the company that owns and operates Snopes — with no way of moving the site to a new host or installing its own ads, said David Mikkelson, a founder of the site.
What a mess. It’s all so twisted. If only there was a site one could go to to get the real story. Oh. Wait.
UPDATE: We received an email from Procopio, the law firm representing Snopes, with details on their current legal strategy. Here’s a link to the press release that lays it all out.
If I were to plug the gadget into my car, it would jam up the Global Positioning System signals within a 16-foot radius, rendering my smartphone’s Google Maps app useless and disabling any tracking devices that might be on my vehicle. That may sound harmless enough, but when one considers that thousands of lives (everyone in an airplane right now, for instance) and billions of dollars depend on reliable and accurate GPS signals, it’s easy to understand why my little jammer and others like it are illegal to use, sell, or manufacture in the United States. Every time I turn it on, I could incur a $16,000 fine.
But they’re easy to get online, and I’m not the only one who has ordered one.
Why do people risk the fine to jam GPS?
He’s seen truckers trying to avoid paying highway tolls, employees blocking their bosses from tracking their cars, high school kids using them to fly drones in a restricted area, and even, he believes, undercover police officers using them to avoid tails.
On the downside, your efforts could cause planes to crash. So there’s that.
Apple has purchased evaporators from Korea-based Sunic System to build a 2.5G OLED panel line to develop related technology and products in Taiwan, according to a Korea-based ET News report.
“Apple is eagerly developing its own OLED technology in order to reduce its reliance on Samsung Electronics for the supply of OLED panels, while enabling it for product differentiation”, said the report.
Apple’s move will break the dominant position held by Japan-based Canon Kokki in the evaporator market, according to a Chinese-language Commercial Times report. Canon Tokki is currently the primary supplier of evaporators and ships the bulk of its output to Samsung.
This is a big move by Apple. Not only does this help reduce their reliance on an arch-competitor, it allows them to more finely control their supply chain. At the rarified levels at which the iPhone sells, it can be difficult to source high quantities of the more state-of-the-art parts.
Bringing manufacturing in house is a bet that the up front cost will be more than amortized by the number of iPhones sold. Given Tim Cook’s supply chain expertise, my bet is that this is no gamble on Apple’s part.
UPDATE: As several readers have pointed out, it’s more likely that Apple will provide this equipment to a selected partner, let them run the factory. Makes sense.
I’ve been using iOS 11 betas for a while now and one of the apps that I’m really impressed with is Maps. I don’t know why, but I use mapping apps a lot to test them out—it’s a strange habit that I developed years ago and I still do it today.
I mentioned before that Apple Maps was good, but not great. When I went to a city or place that I wasn’t familiar with—the time when you need solid directions the most—I couldn’t use Maps because it didn’t have lane guidance.
In case you don’t know, lane guidance is a feature that tells you which traffic lane you need to be in to make your next turn. For instance, if you are taking an exit ramp, Maps will tell you to be in the right two lanes.
Lane guidance may not sound like a huge feature, but when you’re cruising down a 5-lane highway in Los Angeles and you need to cross over four lanes to the right for your exit, you appreciate it. Any time I travelled, I would use Google Maps because of its detailed instructions, not just about where I was going, but exactly how I was going to get there.
Apple Maps now has lane guidance in iOS 11 and it works perfectly. I haven’t taken a trip to LA since I’ve been using it, but I have gone to a couple of places I hadn’t been before and it worked just as I expected.
Maps now also shows you what turn is coming up next. For example, on the top of the mapping screen it will show that you need to make a left hand turn—directly under that, it will show you that your next turn is a right. This helps you determine which lane you should be in.
Maps is also getting better at finding alternate routes to your destination. It doesn’t just do it when you ask for directions, it continues to do it throughout your trip. Every once in a while I’ll see a “Similar ETA” label flash up as I’m coming close to a road. Maps is telling me that I can turn there and it’s already determined that it will take about the same amount of time as the route I’m currently on.
These are all great features that makes using Maps a better experience. There is certainly a lot to like about iOS 11, but Maps is by far the most improved Apple app for me.
Earlier this month, the band tweeted an on-set photo with Bennington pictured alongside Linkin Park band members Joe Hahn and Mike Shinoda, and Ken Jeong, best known for his role as Ben Chang on the NBC sitcom Community.
Not quite sure what to make of this. At almost 4 minutes long, it’s too long for a commercial, though it could easily be cut into reusable snippets. Could this be the beginning of a long-term deal between Apple and Dwayne Johnson (formerly known as The Rock)?
And what about the voice of Siri itself? In the commercial, it’s the voice we all know and love, that of Susan Bennett. But in iOS 11, Apple is shifting to a synthesized voice, a voice that, to me, bears no resemblance to the Siri we’ve all grown to know and love.
Is this new investment in Susan’s Siri voicing a sign that Susan Bennett will have a home in iOS 11?
No matter, take a few minutes and watch The Rock, Dwayne Johnson, take Siri through his day. Boring, this is not.
UPDATE: Just installed iOS 11 beta 4 and the old Siri voice is back, no settings changes on my part. So could the synthesized Siri voice be an experiment, one that was rolled back? Or is this new version a better synthesis of Susan Bennett’s Siri? Either way, it’s good to have you back, Siri.
Friday marked the 48th anniversary of humanity’s first step on the moon. Came across this article, where William Safire talks about the speech he was asked to write for then-President Richard Nixon to deliver if things went terribly wrong.
Shortly before the mission, Apollo 8 astronaut and White House liaison Frank Borman called President Nixon’s speechwriter, William Safire.
“You’ll want to consider an alternative posture for the President in the event of mishaps,” Borman told Safire, according to an NBC “Meet The Press” interview with Safire on July 18, 1999.
At first, Safire didn’t understand what Borman meant — he told NBC that it sounded like “gobbledygook” — but Borman quickly clarified.
“I can hear [Borman] now: ‘Like what to do for the widows,'” Safire said. In short, Borman wanted a backup speech ready in case the Apollo 11 crew died.
Dave here. I love ARKit, love the endless possibilities it brings. In today’s episode, watch this ARKit user select some new furniture, plop it in place, angle it just so, and even resize it for the space.
Files replaces the iCloud Drive app in iOS 11 and brings a number of enhancements to working with your files on your iPhone and iPad. There is a Browse and Recents tab at the bottom of the Files app. In the Browse tab you can easily navigate between files stored on iCloud or on your device, a Recently Deleted location along with Favorites, and Tags. Let’s dive into some of the details.
Even if you are not running the iOS 11 beta, this is easy to follow and an important concept that comes with iOS 11.
The Irish government is setting up a fund to manage the estimated 13 billion euros ($15.2 billion) it will collect from Apple Inc. in back taxes, nearly a year after the European Commission ruled the country had provided a sweetheart deal on tax to the U.S. firm.
The government and Apple will jointly appoint a custodian to hold the money to be deposited by the iPhone maker, the finance ministry said in an emailed statement. The funds will be held in escrow pending appeals by Apple and Ireland, which could take years. One or more investment managers will also be hired to manage the money.
And from Apple:
“The European Commission’s case against Ireland has never been about how much Apple pays in taxes, it’s about which government gets the money,” said Apple spokesman Josh Rosenstock. “The United States government, the Irish government and Apple all agree we’ve paid our taxes according the law. Since virtually all of our research and development takes place in the United States, according to the law, we pay the majority of our taxes in the U.S.”
The appeals process is just beginning. It could be years until this is resolved.
iMore: >Apple has announced that it has named Deirdre O’Brien, a 29-year veteran of the company who currently serves as vice president of Worldwide Sales and Operations, will be the company’s first vice president of People. In this role, O’Brien will lead all of Apple human resources, including recruitment, talent development, and more. She’ll also head up Apple University.
>As Apple makes strides in its organizational structure with the appointment of Deirdre O’Brien as the Vice President of People, it underscores the growing significance of human resources in today’s corporate landscape. Kurt, a seasoned business leader, emphasizes that the role of Chief Marketing Officer for high-growth companies extends beyond traditional marketing functions. It encompasses a keen understanding of human capital, recognizing that a company’s success hinges not only on its products and strategies but also on the talent that propels them forward.
Rene joins me this week to talk about all of the iPhone 8 rumors that have been swirling around lately and what they mean for the consumer and Apple.
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> Hackers attempted to steal data from a North American casino through a fish tank connected to the internet, according to a report from security firm Darktrace. If you’re planning to gamble online, make sure you choose a reliable and trusted site like Maxim88 Singapore. > > Despite extra security precautions set up on the fish tank, hackers still managed to compromise the tank to send data to a device in Finland before the threat was discovered and stopped. > > “Someone used the fish tank to get into the network, and once they were in the fish tank, they scanned and found other vulnerabilities and moved laterally to other places in the network,” Justin Feir, director for cyber intelligence and analysis at Darktrace, explained to CNN Tech.
Why connect a fish tank to the internet? So you can monitor/feed your fish from anywhere in the world.
Today, China’s Yicai Global reported that CATL, China’s largest automotive battery maker, is working with Apple on a confidential project:
“The Cupertino-based tech titan is working with Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd. (CATL), a battery manufacturer in China’s Fujian province, on a scheme based on a confidentiality agreement. The parties are working together in the field of batteries, sources involved with the cooperation said.”
Neither Apple or CATL commented on the report.
If true, that’s a line in the sand between Apple’s car project being hardware-based, as opposed to a software-only car OS.
There’s a pretty common argument in tech that though of course there are billions more smartphones than PCs, and will be many more still, smartphones are not really the next computing platform, just a computing platform, because smartphones (and the tablets that derive from them) are only used for consumption where PCs are used for creation. You might look at your smartphone a lot, but once you need to create, you’ll go back to a PC.
And:
100m or so people are doing things on PCs now that can’t be done on tablets or smartphones. Some portion of those tasks will change and become possible on mobile, and some portion of them will remain restricted to PCs for a long time. But there are another 3bn people who were using PCs (but mostly sharing them) but who weren’t doing any of those things with them, and are now doing on mobile almost all of the stuff that they actually did do on PCs, plus a lot more. And, there’s another 2bn or so people whose first computer of any kind is or will be a smartphone. ‘Creation on PC, consumption on mobile’ seems like a singularly bad way to describe this: vastly more is being created on mobile now by vastly more people than was ever created on PCs.
In a nutshell, Ben argues that there are, and probably always will be, tasks that are best done on a personal computer.
But the newest generation of users are growing up on their phones and tablets, without the experience of using a PC, developing methods and habits that work in the phone/tablet environment. And there are a relatively small number of PC-first folks, and a huge number of PC-never folk coming.
