A mirror, with built in display elements, all based on iOS 10.
From the Apple Mirror site:
Design includes the time and date in the upper right hand corner and weather in the top left. All apps can be moved around and placed anywhere on the mirror. After 45 seconds of inactivity the mirror goes to sleep (appears as any ordinary mirror), simply tap anywhere to wake back up and resume use. Some useful things you can do with this mirror: Request an Uber, watch Netflix, read the news, control smart thermostat / light bulbs, control Sonos speaker system and more.
Seems to me, there was an Android project a while back that did something similar. Search, search, search. Ah, here it is.
Zac Hall, writing for 9to5Mac, details his three weeks of experience with his 15 inch Touch Bar MacBook Pro. Zac really puts his machine through its paces and focuses on the details. Definitely worth the read if you are considering a Touch Bar Mac.
Apple recently made a quiet update to its Apple Support site, introducing a new feature that allows customers to find and schedule repairs for iPhones, Macs, and iPads from Apple Authorized Service Providers.
When troubleshooting a product, choosing “Bring in for Repair” after going through Apple’s support prompts now brings up all repair centers near a customer, including Apple’s own retail stores and retail locations where customers can get repairs from Apple Authorized Service Providers.
And:
In addition to including all nearby Apple Authorized Service Providers, the new repair site also lists availability, so customers can find the fastest repairs and get same-day service in many locations. There’s even an option to book a repair right from the site.
On Thursday, YouTube, which is by most estimates the most popular destination for music online, announced that it had reached a settlement with the National Music Publishers’ Association, a trade group, over the complex issue of unpaid songwriting royalties.
And:
In a persistent problem for the online music business, large numbers of songs have missing or incorrect data about their songwriters and which music publishers represent them, leaving what is widely estimated to be millions of dollars unpaid.
And:
The agreement with YouTube, which is owned by Google, will give participating publishers — the companies that traditionally manage songwriting rights, which are separate from those of recordings — access to a list of songs for which YouTube has missing or incomplete rights data. YouTube will then pay any accrued royalties from a fund it has set aside for this purpose.
The best solution would be to get the data right in the first place, to make sure the songwriters who wrote the song that drives YouTube’s music views get paid properly. But this seems a step in the right direction.
It’s a jazz lover’s dream come true. Created by recording engineer William Savory, the Savory Collection includes more than 100 hours of recordings made from live New York City radio broadcasts between 1935 and 1941 and never heard since their initial airing. Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Fats Waller, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Teddy Wilson, Django Reinhardt, Coleman Hawkins, Louis Jordan, Lennie Tristano and Bunny Berigan are all showcased in The Savory Collection.
Tech giant Apple argued in a Beijing court on Wednesday that its iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus mobile designs do not copy a Chinese product and should be allowed to be sold on the Chinese mainland.
There was no verdict announced, but they argued the case in court for 8 hours.
The digital music marriage that many wanted to happen isn’t happening after all. Spotify has given up on its latest effort to buy SoundCloud following months of talks between the two, according to a source at Spotify who is familiar with discussions.
I never understood the appeal of this deal for Spotify.
Apple buys a lot of companies, but it doesn’t talk much about them, making it hard to keep track. So we put together nine of its acquisitions reported this year. This list is not exhaustive, we know for sure some purchases have never been revealed.
As expected, artificial intelligence companies remain the dominant category, but the list also includes a TV series spinoff and an education-tech startup.
Always interesting to track these and see if they lead to anything directly.
It’s the bane of every web surfer, the internet’s version of fingernails on the chalkboard. Click almost any link that dates back to pre-2005 and brace for the inevitable: “HTTP 404 Not Found.”
Anyone who’s spent time near an internet connection is familiar with the 404 error, a webserver’s way of saying you’ve reached a dead end. What’s less well known is that this very error is what allowed the World Wide Web to exist in the first place.
I didn’t realize the number 404 actually stood for something.
I was captivated when Apple opened its first set of physical retail stores in 2001. But in the last few years, the stores have really turned me off. I don’t like stepping into them. They don’t make me feel welcome — rather they make me feel like I need a good reason to be there. Of course I have a reason to be there, but I don’t like the fact that I have to declare it upon entry.
The irony of this web site’s name is not lost on me. This is a lot of noise that brings to mind Yogi Berra: “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”
Greenery is a fresh and zesty yellow-green shade that evokes the first days of spring when nature’s greens revive, restore and renew. Illustrative of flourishing foliage and the lushness of the great outdoors, the fortifying attributes of Greenery signals consumers to take a deep breath, oxygenate and reinvigorate.
Arguably one of the most influential figures in the history of gaming, this is a big moment for Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo. From the Verge interview:
“Super Mario Run is going to introduce millions of more people to the fun of Mario, and it’ll become the entry point for them,” Miyamoto explains. “And then the question becomes, once you’ve gone through that entry point, then what comes next? Is it a more traditional Mario experience? Is it something like the Mario Galaxy games? We’ll then have to look at what it is these new fans want from a Mario game, and we’ll continue to see Mario evolve in that way.”
Nintendo is exploring some new paths (Investment in Pokemon Go, Nintendo Switch, and porting Mario to iOS), all of which seem to be working very well.
Looking forward to next Thursday’s rollout of Super Mario Run and, in March, to the Nintendo Switch and the open world version of The Legend of Zelda.
May 2, 2006: The first spot from the “Get a Mac” campaign, “Better,” airs in the US. It is one of eight spots that Steve Jobs approved out of the 12 that were produced from the first three-day shoot.
This was delightful, infectiously fun. Turns out, Jimmy Fallon is pretty good at this game. Great marketing for both Super Mario Run and the Nintendo Switch, which they showed off midway through the video, with Jimmy getting a chance to explore the open world of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the Switch.
I love that they had Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto in the audience to watch. My favorite part of the show was Miyamoto playing the Super Mario theme with the Roots.
Nintendo’s Super Mario Run will debut one week from today, an iOS exclusive at least through the end of the year.
Interested in the gameplay? The video embedded below will take you through the highlights. To me, this feels like a Nintendo game worth of Super Mario. The fit and finish is just what you’d expect, the sound effects spot on.
Apple VP Jennifer Bailey got onstage at the Code Commerce Series and spoke, interview style, about the current status of Apple Pay.
If you have even the slightest interest in Apple Pay, this is worth watching. Jennifer is well spoken, really knows her stuff, and offers some projections on where Apple Pay is going. For example, she proposed that in 2017, two thirds of the top 100 retailers will accept Apple Pay.
A few years ago, I wrote about Craig Federighi being a natural presence on stage. He’s confident, self effacing, well-spoken, and passionate. He does a terrific job representing Apple.
To me, Jennifer Bailey has that same personality. I think she’d be great on stage at an Apple event. She certainly breathes life into Apple Pay discussions.
I’m not a fan of the article’s title, but it is definitely an interesting read. At its core:
Taking advantage of an exemption tucked into America’s Byzantine tax code, Apple stashed much of its foreign earnings—tax-free—right here in the U.S., in part by purchasing government bonds, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. In return, the Treasury Department paid Apple at least $600 million and possibly much more over the past five years in the form of interest, a Bloomberg review of its regulatory filings shows.
And:
Blaming U.S. companies for following the tax code, however complex or flawed, is misguided, says Richard Lane, a senior analyst at Moody’s Investors Service.
“If these companies don’t need the money in the U.S., there’s no incentive to give Uncle Sam” that money in taxes, he said. “What sane chief financial officer, who’s doing their fiduciary duties to shareholders, would pay money to some entity for no good reason? If there’s a moral issue, I’m not sure whether there’s immorality to that.”
In a nutshell, the article details that Apple is buying US Treasury bonds to park overseas earnings, while still maintaining that money as overseas.
Given the availability of this strategy, if I’m an Apple investor, I suspect I’d be upset if Apple didn’t follow this strategy.
We’ve teamed up with Sonos to make it easier than ever to keep the music going strong. Now Spotify Premium users can control their Sonos straight from the Spotify app using Spotify Connect. Use all the features you love about Spotify: the curation, discovery, and sharing and hear it all throughout your home in crystal clear sound. You can also access the multiroom power of the Sonos home sound system directly in the Spotify app. We’ve brought out the best of both worlds to give you the smartest and most seamless home sound system yet.
This is huge. I love Sonos, but using their app is a real pain.
The National Hockey League has informed teams that it is in late-stage negotiations to strike a partnership with Apple that could see the company’s iPads and other technology become commonplace on team benches, TSN has learned.
I have noticed lately that there are screens behind the benches during Bruins games, but I’m not sure what they are. I believe they are just monitors for the coaches to look at replays.
As proprietary, non-standardized formats go, Iomega’s Zip drive got a heck of a lot further than most of its competitors. It managed to improve on a format people were used to (the old floppy) just enough that it ensured it’d gain popularity. It fit niches for people who had to share a lot of data. And it even had a sizable base of home users—which was impressive for its time. But the Zip drive was a famously problematic product, and one whose faults created big problems for Iomega. Today’s Tedium talks about the Zip drive, along with the era of proprietary PC storage.
I’ve often wondered if Iomega could have hung on if they hadn’t ignored the Click of Death issue. If they had been more responsive to customers, we might have stuck with them. Now, with the rise of the internet and the ability of customers to communicate and warn each other much more quickly, there’s no way Iomega could have hidden the issue for as long as they did.
21st Century Fox Inc., Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros. and Comcast Corp.’s Universal Pictures all confirmed over the past week that they are looking to offer high-priced, home-video rentals of new movies shortly after they open in theaters. Some studio executives have been pushing to allow home rentals as early as two weeks after theatrical debuts and are considering a deal with iTunes as one option, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private.
One option is a premium-priced online rental for new movies, at prices of $25 to $50, a possibility under consideration at the studios, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
I think this would be great, and I’d be willing to pay a premium to be able to rent movies that are still in theaters. However, $25 is a bit rich for me. I’d wait until they dropped the price to about half of that.
Perhaps you heard. A few weeks ago, Apple released a book called Designed by Apple in California: a $300 hardcover containing 450 photos of Apple products, chronicling almost 20 years of Apple’s industrial design—and specifically, Jony Ive’s Apple industrial design.
But I also thought where the book started was interesting: 1998’s candy-colored iMac G3, the first Mac released after Steve Jobs came to Apple. This is an important computer, true. But it’s not the first computer Jony Ive designed for Apple. Nor is it his most forward-looking.
It’s understandable the reasons behind the decision but it certainly can be argued it should have been included.
