Popular Mechanics:

It was supposed to be one of the greatest achievements in the history of the United States space program.

A civilian—a schoolteacher, an emissary of the hope for tomorrow—was going to space. Christa McAuliffe, a thirty-seven-year-old mother of two from Concord, New Hampshire, had been selected from eleven thousand entrants to NASA’s Teacher in Space contest. She became a symbol of optimism and progress amid Cold War tension. And the rest of the shuttle crew was itself a representation of the strength of American society: Gregory Jarvis, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Michael Smith, and Commander Dick Scobee. Two women, one of them Jewish. An African- American. An Asian-American. They were the most diverse group of astronauts NASA ever assembled.

On the morning of January 28, 1986, despite concerns within NASA and among others working on the launch that the weather was too cold, the shuttle Challenger blasted off. Seventy-three seconds later, it broke apart in long, grotesque fingers of white smoke in the sky above Cape Canaveral, Florida.

While it was thirty years ago today, I still remember it vividly. I had turned the TV on specifically to watch the launch. I never missed one. I loved watching any kind of NASA launch and had since I was a kid. After Challenger, I never watched another one.

The Atlantic:

“It’s really strange that only humans have chins,” says James Pampush from Duke University. “When we’re looking at things that are uniquely human, we can’t look to big brains or bipedalism because our extinct relatives had those. But they didn’t have chins. That makes this immediately relevant to everyone.”

Indeed, except in rare cases involving birth defects, everyone has chins. Sure, some people have less pronounced ones than others, perhaps because their lower jaws are small or they have more flesh around the area. But if you peeled back that flesh and exposed their jawbones—and maybe don’t do that—you’d still see a chin.

So, why do chins exist?

In the category of “things I wasn’t expecting to think about today”, I would put high on the list, “Why do human beings have chins?” It’s actually a very interesting article and, spoiler alert, scientists really don’t know why.

CNBC:

Cramer thinks the brand loyalty for Apple is so great customers won’t switch to another company. So maybe Apple doesn’t need to worry about peaking phone sales. Maybe it just needs to keep selling more devices, and let the service stream do the talking.

“By this time next year, it wouldn’t shock me if that service revenue number becomes the key metric, especially with the iPhone 7 right around the corner,” Cramer said.

I find Cramer physically hard to listen to (his voice is like finger nails on a blackboard to me) and I’m not going to give him a pass on his late realization of the importance of brand loyalty when it comes to Apple, but the piece and the video have some interesting thoughts as to why analysts can’t seem to get their heads around Apple and why they seemingly treat Apple so harshly. I don’t know if his conclusion that service revenue will be a key metric in the future is correct but it’s something to keep an eye on.

Talon Torres:

…(it) had been launched at six times Earth’s escape velocity. That’s one hundred fifty thousand miles per hour. Forty-five miles per second. Nine times faster than the Space Shuttle, six times faster than the fastest moon rockets. Faster than the Voyager spacecraft, which, having reached over 35000 miles per hour, are now leaving the solar system and have for years been claimed to be the fastest man-made objects ever. To which I now say: Pshaw and poppycock…

So somewhere in the New Mexico desert, unknown and unmourned, lies an American relic, a piece of history like no other: the fastest man-made object ever.

I have no idea who the writer is but it’s a great story and the answer will surprise you. The amount of energy required is mindboggling. Thanks to John Molloy for the link.

This is a set of 43 photos from The Last Waltz, a farewell concert for The Band from 1976.

From the Last Waltz Wikipedia page:

The Last Waltz was a concert by the Canadian-American rock group the Band, held on American Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1976, at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. The Last Waltz was advertised as the Band’s “farewell concert appearance,” and the concert saw the Band joined by more than a dozen special guests, including Bob Dylan, Paul Butterfield, Neil Young, Emmylou Harris, Ringo Starr, Ronnie Hawkins, Dr. John, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Muddy Waters, Ronnie Wood, Neil Diamond, Bobby Charles, The Staple Singers, and Eric Clapton. The musical director for the concert was the Band’s original record producer, John Simon.

This was a big deal back in the day. Martin Scorsese made a great documentary (also called The Last Waltz) that’s worth watching if you can find it.

These photos are an historic find.

Om Malik:

Let’s recap 2015 from an iPhone perspective. The company sold 232 million iPhones during calendar year 2015 versus 193 million in 2014 and 154 million units in 2013.

And:

Apple made more than $54 billion in profits during calendar year 2015: which is actually twice the amount of sales Apple had during the (fiscal, not calendar) year the iPhone launched: 2007.

Doomed.

Macworld’s Christopher Phin walks you through the options. If nothing else, click through to the article and read each section headline, just to get a sense of all the options covered.

Good stuff.

Cabel Sasser, writing for the Panic blog, on the challenge of making money building (top notch) iOS apps:

I brought this up last year and we still haven’t licked it. We had a change of heart — well, an experimental change of heart — and reduced the price of our iOS apps in 2015 to normalize them at $9.99 or less, thinking that was the upper limit and/or sweet spot for iOS app pricing. But it didn’t have a meaningful impact on sales.

More and more I’m beginning to think we simply made the wrong type of apps for iOS — we made professional tools that aren’t really “in demand” on that platform — and that price isn’t our problem, but interest is.

So, once again, we will investigate raising our iOS app prices in 2016, with two hopes: that the awesome customers that love and need these apps understand the incredible amount of work that goes into them and that these people are also willing to pay more for a quality professional app (whereas, say, the casual gamer would not).

It’s a tough nut to crack. Tough to know the right apps to develop and tough to find the right pricing sweet spot at which to sell them.

Walt Mossberg wrote this Verge article about Twitter becoming too complicated for users, comparing it unfavorably to Facebook.

John Gruber’s response sums this up perfectly:

The fundamental problem is that Twitter is compared to Facebook, and it shouldn’t be. Facebook appeals to billions of people. “Most people”, it’s fair to say. Twitter appeals to hundreds of millions of people. That’s amazing, and there’s tremendous value in that — but it’s no Facebook. Cramming extra features into Twitter will never make it as popular as Facebook — it will only dilute what it is that makes Twitter as popular and useful as it is.

Exactly.

Ben Lovejoy, writing for 9to5Mac:

The iPad Pro quietly gained a new capability in iOS 9.3 beta 2: German developer Stefan Wolfrum tweeted that the device can now update the firmware in devices attached to the Smart Connector. He was offered, and able to complete, a firmware update to his Logitech Create keyboard.

Firmware updates of accessories usually need you to connect them to a Mac, but as the Smart Connector is unique to the iPad Pro, it’s likely this fact that prompted the new capability.

The move also helps support Tim Cook’s contention that, for many people, an iPad Pro could be a complete replacement for a PC.

When you think about an iPad as a full-time device, you usually think about software, about the ability to consume and (more importantly) produce all of your content without relying on a laptop or desktop machine.

But the ability to fully support your satellite devices (like updating the Logitech keyboard’s firmware) is just as critical. Interesting development.

Joe Mullin, writing for Ars Technica:

A patent-holding company called Minero Digital seeks to exact royalty payments on a wide range of USB hubs, suing more than two dozen retailers and manufacturers last year. But the “non-practicing entity” dropped its East Texas lawsuit against Newegg subsidiary Rosewill within days of getting a call from the company’s lawyer. It’s not going to be easy for Minero and its president, Texas lawyer Daniel Perez, to walk away, though. Yesterday, Newegg filed its own lawsuit (PDF) against Minero in Los Angeles federal court, asking a judge to rule that Rosewill products do not infringe Minero’s patent.

And:

Beyond the possibility of being sued again, Cheng noted that Minero continues to litigate against other retailers that sell Rosewill-branded products and that Newegg may have defense obligations to those other companies. Minero continues to press its case against more than 20 companies, with the defendants including Office Depot, Walmart, and Amazon—three big retailers that sell Rosewill products.

Newegg’s lawsuit asks only for a judicial ruling of non-infringement, not money damages

Not only does Newegg sell a nice line of tech products and provide excellent customer service, they also stick up for themselves. It would have been easy for them to pay Minero to go away. But not only did they stand up to the bully, they are now countersuing to prevent Minero from collecting from anyone else on this patent claim.

The Register:

VMware has fired the US-based development teams that worked on its Fusion and Workstation desktop hypervisors, the products that gave the company its start.

And, from our friends at Crediful.com:

The Register asked VMware to confirm the layoffs and to explain the future of the products and were told: “We can confirm that the restructuring activities will not impact the existence of any current product lines.”

From VMware:

In some cases, roles and responsibilities associated with particular businesses will be moved to other regions and office locations. VMware continues to invest in all of its offerings across the portfolio, with emphasis on our growth products.

From former VMware team member Christian Hammond’s blog:

Yesterday morning, the Hosted UI team, responsible for VMware’s Workstation and Fusion products, woke up to find themselves out of a job. These products, despite being award-winning and profitable, are probably not long for this world.

I was not directly affected, in this way at least, as I had already left VMware in 2013 to work on Review Board full-time. However, many of my closest friends were, and a product I spent 9 years of my life on may have seen its last feature.

I could talk all day about how I think we got here, losing this amazing team and these fantastic products. I could point fingers and lash out at those I blame. I could talk about how furious this all makes me.

Instead, I’m going to talk about the team and what we built — and I don’t just mean our products.

I get outsourcing. When you are trying to keep a company as lean as possible, or simply afloat, outsourcing to reduce labor costs is hard to resist. But abruptly laying off your flagship product’s dev team is hard to swallow. It’s demeaning to all involved and, I suspect, will turn into terrible PR for VMware.

Kerris is well known in Silicon Valley for her job as one of the top public relations and communications staffers at Apple. She was in the running for the top job at the tech giant, which went to Steve Dowling, after the departure of Katie Cotton.

Kerris retired from Apple, but she would be a great addition to Twitter if they can get her.

The New York Times:

Let’s get this out of the way first: Despite what you may have heard, the iPhone is not dying. Neither, by extension, is Apple.

It’s true that in an earnings report on Tuesday, after weeks of speculation by Wall Street that iPhone sales would finally hit a peak, Apple confirmed the news: IPhone sales grew at their lowest-ever rate in the last quarter. And the company projected total sales of as much as $53 billion in the current quarter that ends in March, which would be a decline of 8.6 percent from last year and Apple’s first revenue drop in more than a decade.

But if Apple is now hitting a plateau, it’s important to remember that it’s one of the loftiest plateaus in the history of business. The $18.4 billion profit that Apple reported on Tuesday is the most ever earned by any company in a single quarter.

It’s necessary to start with these caveats because people have a tendency to react strongly, almost apoplectically, to any suggestion of weakness on Apple’s part.

Yesterday’s earnings report followed the usual script – Apple announces amazing numbers and everyone says, “Yeah, but what’s next!?” I think Apple Executives and The Board of Directors look past the stock price at a much longer time frame. This allows them to, if not ignore the rending of garments, at least keep it in perspective. Apple is still, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future, a very succesful company.

Margaret Kelsey, Content and Community Manager at InVision:

Nothing stirs up a more impassioned debate with designers than asking them to choose their favorite typeface. So this week, we forced a handful of creatives in the InVision community to make that tough decision.

And no lorem ipsum here! They’ve written their favorite word — which, for many, is a breakfast food — using their chosen typeface.

Nice to scroll through these one word treatments. See if any of these typefaces grab you.

Davey Alba, writing for Wired:

Rejected gifts and returned goods don’t go back on the shelves from which they came. They follow an entirely different logistical path, a weird mirror image of the supply chain that brings the goods we actually want to our doors.

This parallel process exists because the cost of restocking and reselling returned items often exceeds the value of those items. To cut their losses, online retailers often turn to folks like Ringelsten.

And:

With retailers investing more in returns, they must also find a way to ensure they don’t hemorrhage money in the process. That’s where re-commerce comes in. Major retailers can’t resell returned items, even if they’re still brand new, says Shorewood’s Ringelsten. “You don’t know where the product went after it left your store, so you can’t put it back on your shelf.”

Fascinating article.

Fix this!

The Wirecutter:

Rechargeable batteries are better and cheaper than you remember, holding a charge for years and costing less than a nickel per charge over their life cycle. In fact, after more than a dozen hours of research, a dozen hours of real-world tests, and over 70 hours of controlled testing with a pair of battery analyzers—including another 12 hours of real-world testing with flashlights and a camera flash—we found that the Energizer Recharge Power Plus are the best rechargeable AAs for most people most of the time. But we also found that almost all the brands we tested are good enough for most uses if you can find them at a discount.

And:

The Energizers handily beat the popular eneloops in both tests, offering about 16 percent more capacity and 7 percent longer flashlight burn time, despite having the same average price per battery.

Eneloops are one of the better sellers on Amazon, so this (to me) is a significant difference.

Joe Belfiore is Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President, Operating Systems Group. He’s in charge of the Windows Phone software.

On vacation in Japan, Joe tweeted a pic from his iPhone, which started a bit of a kerfuffle. To me, this would be like Craig Federighi tweeting from an Android phone. Odd choice, but a solid endorsement.

iMore transcribed the call, along with all the analyst questions, and answers from Tim Cook and Luca Maestri.

Blair Bunting:

There was once a time when men flew a jet that tore the air apart, nearly revealing the physics that had served only to hold it together. It was an aircraft that screamed as quietly as the night, flying for almost ten years before it was even known to exist. To many, it is considered the greatest aircraft innovation ever gave us; it is the SR-71 Blackbird.

I was not among those fortunate to see it fly, my viewership of this spectical (sic) is, and will always be, limited to History Channel documentaries with the sound cranked to 11. However, I could not help but feel the sense of awe when stepping out of the van at Beal Air Force Base and the PA officer saying, “here is your SR-71, Mr. Bunting.”

Even after all of these years, it is still the most magnificent airplane I’ve ever seen. I remember the day it buzzed the city of Vancouver to promote the local airshow. I was literally standing in awe, mouth agape, as it flew by.

Wired:

It’s odd when you think about it. Records are archaic technology, a format that is not at all portable and subject to all manner of degradation, from scratches and skips to pops and clicks, if it isn’t properly and lovingly cared for. But audiophiles insist vinyl offers superior sound. We’ll stay out of that debate, but you have to admit it is pretty cool how vinyl works.

There’s a process to it that borders on artistry, something Wiper—who loves records—discovered during a visit to Record Industry, a pressing plant in the in the Dutch city of Haarlem. The British photographer followed every step in the process, from making the master to pressing the wax to shrink-wrapping the finished product. “Seeing how it’s done really makes you realize how amazingly clever this old-fashioned technology is,” he says.

The process of creating the actual vinyl record is fascinating. The slide show included with the story makes me wish for a video of the incredibly detailed process. Almost makes me want to buy vinyl again. Almost.

I absolutely love this. Please pass this along.

Sam Oliver, writing for AppleInsider:

Apple has placed a hiring freeze on the team responsible for the company’s nascent automotive ambitions after executives became unhappy with the project’s direction and progress, AppleInsider has learned.

The change was precipitated by a post-holiday progress review conducted by Apple design chief Jony Ive, according to a previously reliable source with knowledge of the team’s activities. Ive is said to have “expressed his displeasure” with the group’s headway.

If Apple is indeed building a car, it’s got to be the biggest learning curve they’ve ever tackled. No big surprise if there are a few wrong turns and false starts. What’s key is that they get their ducks in a row, find the right direction.

The Guardian:

Following the fun users had with the “effective power” iPhone text message bug, people have been sending a link to users of Apple’s Safari browser that will crash their iPhones or Macs.

The link, which is simply crashsafari.com, overloads the default browser with a self-generating text string which populates the address bar. After about 20 seconds or so it will force an iPhone to reboot, while significantly heating up as the smartphone tries to handle the code of the site.

Sigh. This is why we can’t have nice things.

One nit with the Guardian’s headline (“Sending link to website lets you crash Safari and anyone’s iPhone”). It’s clicking on the link that causes the crash, not the act of sending it.

Tim Bajarin, writing for PCMag.com:

Among those early adopters who love Cupertino’s smartwatch, their pick for its killer app varies greatly. For instance, my wife’s killer app is “Find my iPhone” since she is always misplacing it. She also loves using it to communicate with our granddaughter, who is in junior high and also has an Apple Watch$699.99 at Apple Store. For others, it is the activity tracker and step counter.

But for a specific group of users known as knowledge workers, myself included, the killer app seems to be notifications. I got hooked on notifications when I started using the original Samsung Gear and Moto 360 smartwatches. So when the Apple Watch came out, I knew it would become an important device for me.

Indeed, since I’ve had my Apple Watch, notifications are the No. 1 reason I would feel lost if I ever forgot to wear it. I tailored the notifications for my particular needs, from news alerts from CNN, AP, and ESPN to tweets that are tied to key people I follow. There are now thousands of apps with Apple Watch notification capabilities, but I find these to be the most important to me.

Couldn’t agree more. My Apple Watch is a satellite of my wedged-in-my-pocket iPhone. If I could pick one place for Apple to invest in Apple Watch improvement, it’d be adding more complex capabilities, more sophistication, to the notifications mechanism.

Just as I’d love a smarter, more customizable news feed on my Mac, I’d love the ability to tune up the details in my Apple Watch notification feed. As is, I have to pick a single app to rule the large complication on my watch face. I’d love an even bigger complication, and the ability to feed notifications from a variety of apps through that space.

I’d also love the ability to tweak the digital crown so it steps through a list in a complication, rather than using time travel to get to the next event.

Of course, all of these things are possible if you step into an app or a notification, but I’d love more complexity at a glance, with perhaps a slight twist of the crown.

All that said, I appreciate what I’ve got. My Apple Watch is a fixture on my wrist, here to stay.