1 Password has become one of my must-have apps on Mac and iOS.

Apple Music has surpassed 10 million subscribers across iOS, Mac, PC, Android and Apple TV in just six months, a milestone that took its largest rival Spotify around six years to accomplish.

Yep, this sounds right to me.

While iAd itself isn’t going anywhere, Apple’s direct involvement in the selling and creation of iAd units is ending. “It’s just not something we’re good at,” one source told BuzzFeed News. And so Apple is leaving the creation, selling, and management of iAds to the folks who do it best: the publishers.

I think this is good news. Ads are just not where Apple’s focus should be.

Oristand:

The Oristand is a standing desk made of cardboard that easily collapses and requires no complicated assembly. It’s made out of industrial grade cardboard that is light, strong and affordable. Not to mention it is 100% recyclable. Meaning you can save some cash and we can save some trees.

I’ve been interested in standing desks for a while but most are over $200. At $25, this looks like something you could test out inexpensively. It’s being produced by the folks behind the Vancouver, BC based Hootsuite.

The Canal Saint-Martin is north of the Seine, towards the east side of Paris. As part of periodic maintenance, the canal was completely drained, leaving behind years of detritus and debris. Follow the link to see a series of pictures showing the process of draining the canal and some of the junk that people somehow decided to dispose of into the water.

No big surprises, but I did find the whole series fascinating. They were so careful to save all the fish.

Nate Swanner, writing for The Next Web:

Apple thinks you have — or want — multiple Apple Watches. With iOS 9.3 beta and the watchOS 2.2 beta, you can pair multiple wearables to the same phone.

For developers, this is a solid feature. If you’ve got a 38mm and 42mm Apple Watch you want to physically test a glance on, this is cool.

When it comes to consumers, I can’t see how this is handy. Unless you’re buying an Apple Watch for the kids (which is a bit silly), why would anyone have two? More to the point, what prompted this feature?

Answering his own question:

It could be a forward-facing addition, though. Over time, I can see some using an older Apple Watch for little more than proper fitness tracking during workouts. So long as HealthKit can cobble together data (and it does a decent job with my Apple Watch/iPhone, so Ic an’t see why it wouldn’t be able to handle multiple watches), it may work out just fine.

Of course. As Apple releases new models, I can only imagine that people will still want to use their older Apple Watches, perhaps for workouts or messy work, something to wear while working in the yard, painting, soldering, etc., keeping the newer model for less messy occasions.

As is, I suspect there are not a lot of people who own more than one Apple Watch. Many Apple Watch straps, for sure, but not more than one Apple Watch. But with the eventual release of new Apple Watch hardware, the ability to pair your phone to multiple watches is a natural evolution.

Jeffrey Mincey, writing for Mac360:

A customer can be engaged by a product in many ways, but compare the basic customer experience of buying an Apple product at an Apple Store vs. buying any other product anywhere else, and then compare the customer experience when using the product.

Have you ever talked to a Google employee? Walk into an Apple Store and you’re likely to be greeted by an Apple associate multiple times before you leave. If not always technically proficient, they are friendly, courteous, and helpful. Google does not have an experience to match.

For the most part, you won’t have that face-to-face customer experience with Samsung, Google, HTC, Motorola, Dell, Lenovo, or any other tech gadget maker. Microsoft has their own stores, but they’re few and far between, and usually more populated by sales associates than customers.

Apple is not afraid to help customers face-to-face, whether through the initial purchase, personal setup, personal training on new products, or the Genius Bar for technical support. The experience is open and transparent.

This is a huge part of the modern Apple experience. And at its core is the fact that Apple makes the hardware and the software, something Steve Jobs insisted on from the very beginning. This gives Apple complete control over the customer experience.

Can’t wait to give this a try.

From the Autoblog Press release [Autoplay, pun sadly not intended]:

This year, the winner of the Technology of the Year Feature Award was awarded to Apple CarPlay. “Apple’s CarPlay represents the impact technology is having on our connected lives and brings an experience that is easy to use and enhances the lives of consumers who use this product” said Stephen Rouse, Autoblog’s Director of Product and Technology.

There’s a video on the press release page (linked above) that does a nice job showing off the current version of CarPlay. The CarPlay walkthrough starts at about 3:15 into the video.

This really brought back memories. I was working at Metrowerks, and we were building a version of CodeWarrior for the new operating system. I remember how jarring it felt moving from Mac OS to Mac OS X, especially going from the Finder to the browser interface (what became the modern Finder). The Unix underpinnings made all the difference in the end.

Kudos to Christopher Phin for finding a way to wake up the beta and get these excellent screenshots off his machine and into the article.

After having a runaway hit with the Mo-Fi Headphones (check out our review here), Blue is back at it again with a new pair of passive, closed-back isolation headphones. The Lola headphones promise to deliver much of what is loved about the Mo-Fi model, but at a more budget-friendly price and without compromising on some of the forward-thinking design features. I used Lola for a few weeks to see if they were able to live up to the promise.

I enjoyed this review by Matt Vanacoro.

L.A. Times:

The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292,201,338. But someone has to win, right? We decided to put that idea to the test.This game starts with $100 to play against multiple lottery drawings. Pick your numbers and watch the money disappear.

I spent $10,000 and “won” $814. That being said, I will still very occasionally buy a lottery ticket, even knowing the odds are stacked against me if only because it’s fun to dream, even if only for a little while, about that kind of money and what I’d do with it.

Above Avalon:

There are two Apples: AAPL, the stock, and Apple, the company. While it would seem logical that one is merely a reflection of the other, in reality, the two are guided by vastly different parameters. Over the long run, Apple and AAPL will likely be at odds with each other due to the very nature of Apple’s long-term mission of making products that people love. It is the classic Wall Street vs. Silicon Valley battle, and 2015 was likely just a taste of what is to come.

It would be an understatement to say that AAPL had a weak 2015. When looking at stock price performance, AAPL’s underperformance was quite striking. While GOOG, FB, and AMZN saw strong double-digit stock price increases, AAPL reported a rare 3% decline, the first annual decline since 2008. Even more striking, AAPL’s performance meant that the market removed $46 billion of market cap from AAPL in 2015, whereas AMZN and GOOG were given nearly $350 billion of additional market capitalization.

Wall St never ceases to amaze me and I don’t mean that in a good way. From the outside, it looks like Apple – with record profits, sales, market share and category ownership – would be a Wall Street success story, Cybart does a good job of explaining why the exact opposite is true.

This is a beautiful, video-laden project from the New York Times. It highlights 52 different cities to visit, a sort of bucket list, each accompanied by a writeup, a small map, and a sparkling photo or short video. Lovely job by the Times’ travel team.

Elon Musk, in a BBC interview, talks about the Tesla Model 3, in production next year, designed to be affordable for the masses. When asked about Apple’s plans, he (almost reluctantly, it seems) makes the point that it is an open secret that Apple is working on a car of their own.

Jeff Gammage, writing for Philly.com:

The owner of The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com has donated the news organizations to a newly created media institute, the core of a complicated transaction designed to ensure that quality journalism endures in Philadelphia for generations.

The move places the region’s dominant news-gatherers under the auspices of the nonprofit Philadelphia Foundation.

“Of all the things I’ve done, this is the most important,” said H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest, sole owner of Philadelphia Media Network, which runs the newspapers and website. “Because of the journalism.”

Most importantly:

The new alignment – while unique and untested – sets out mechanisms by which public-interest reporting can be preserved and enhanced while new electronic distribution methods are developed.

This is a groundbreaking business model for newspapers. The skeptic inside me questions the financial aspects of the deal. If the paper lost money as a for-profit vehicle, how will it pay the bills as a non-profit? But there are answers to these questions, apparently. Time will tell. If this works, this could be a way for the news business to survive while still serving the public interests.

This is a great read. Veteran journalist Steven Levy got the chance to interview Ford’s Executive Chairman Bill Ford (former CEO and namesake Henry Ford’s great-grandson). Like everything Steven Levy writes, this is well written, thoughtful, and entertaining.

The most highlighted element from the post is this quote:

“To me, Silicon Valley is an interesting culture, but in its own way it’s every bit as insular as the Detroit culture has been accused of being. There’s a feeling that if something doesn’t originate in the Valley, it’s not worthwhile.”

I see Apple and Ford as two great institutions moving towards each other. It’ll be interesting to see if Apple makes cars and if Ford moves into digital devices.

An interesting article from Forbes. Before you follow the link, you might want to read this Daring Fireball post first.

That said, Avi Dan, writing for Forbes:

Apple, is the most influential American company. Reaching out to Madison Avenue and recruiting Myhren and other well-known creative luminaries is a game changer. I believe that more companies will follow suit and enlist top creative directors to head their internal creative teams. And that would be disruptive for traditional ad agencies.

Why are talented creatives leaving agencies and going client-side?

The people who generate all the ideas and work are passionate and ambitious for their ideas. Agencies, on the other hand, are happy to keep trying to live in a world which is ceasing to exist. Clinging onto the same attitude, tools, and ways of working with CEOs who are either oblivious to the current mindset or too frightened to instigate change. It’s the perfect storm of increasing decreasing loyalty and an industry reveling in mediocrity.

Ad agencies are geared to make money, to bloat projects, to burn hours. Those hourly billings have become Madison Avenue’s real product. This is not what many “A” creatives aspire for. The holding companies, agency bureaucracies and account people that insert themselves into the process have often impeded and, indeed, disrupted an environment that allows for great work.

The fly in this ointment is that there is a limit to the number of companies that can afford to bring “A” talent in house. This is more of a drain of top talent that will dilute the agency model, but I don’t see it disrupting the model entirely. Still, an interesting observation.

From Microsoft’s business blog:

Beginning January 12, 2016, only the most current version of Internet Explorer available for a supported operating system will receive technical supports and security updates. Internet Explorer 11 is the last version of Internet Explorer, and will continue to receive security updates, compatibility fixes, and technical support on Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10.

And:

Microsoft Edge is our all-new browser for Windows 10, that goes beyond browsing with features like Web Note and Cortana1 integration. Microsoft Edge can launch Internet Explorer 11 for sites that need better backward compatibility. Internet Explorer 11 will continue to be supported on Windows 10.

The push to Windows 10 continues. I’ve moved completely off dependence on any Microsoft products. It’s amazing how the business world no longer revolves around Word, Excel, and Outlook.

In a nutshell, The Telegraph ran an article that said:

Apple is under pressure from mobile operators to make it easier for customers to switch between the iPhone and smartphones that use Google’s Android software, amid mounting fears over its dominance.

According to a senior industry source, Apple has privately agreed to develop a simple tool to help consumers shift data such as contacts, music and photos if they move to Android. Major European telecoms operators are concerned that only a tiny fraction of customers ever move off the iPhone, in part because of the technical hassle of transferring data.

Buzzfeed followed with this article, and a definitive “No we’re not” from Apple:

On Monday afternoon, Apple responded to reports claiming it is developing just such an iOS-to-Android tool by rather definitively calling bullshit.

“There is no truth to this rumor,” Apple spokesperson Trudy Muller said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. “We are entirely focused on switching users from Android to iPhone, and that is going great.”

That is all.

Looks like I’ll need to pick up a Ferrari this weekend.

A great look at iTunes over the years by Kirk McElhearn.

Macstories:

Earlier today, Apple released the first developer beta of iOS 9.3, which will introduce several new functionalities for built-in apps and for education users. To highlight some of the changes in this release, Apple has launched a mini-site with screenshots and descriptions of what’s coming in iOS 9.3.

Lots of good looking features here.

The function will now be restricted on residential roads or roads without a center divider, meaning the car cannot drive faster than the speed limit maximum plus five miles (8 km) per hour.

I don’t know how I feel about this whole thing. On one hand they are keeping if off the freeways, but the residential areas is where kids play, right?

When Autopilot launched in October, Musk cautioned the hotly anticipated function was in beta mode, or a test phase of development, with full ‘hands-off’ driving not recommended.

Is this really the type of technology we want to launch in beta mode?

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There’s a jarring dissonance between Sorkin’s obvious skills as a writer and the way his movie was perceived by people in the Applesphere.

Jason Snell, writing for Six Colors:

2015 is in the books. As this is a site with Apple as a primary focus, I thought it might be worthwhile to ask a bunch of my colleagues who pay attention to Apple and related markets to take a moment and reflect on Apple’s performance in the past year.

A few months back, designer Khoi Vinh provided the seed of an idea: “an annual Apple report card, as graded by Mac journalists,” his email read.

So in December I emailed a group of writers, editors, podcasters, and developers, and asked them to take a brief survey. They were prompted with 11 different Apple-related subjects, and asked to rate them on a scale from 1 to 5, as well as optionally provide text commentary on their vote.

Interesting results, from iPhone at the very top to HomeKit at the very bottom. Interestingly, reports back from CES say that the Internet of Things marketplace is a real mess with five different competing standards. It’s no surprise that HomeKit is ranked so poorly.

Richard Russo, writing for Medium:

Issues of ownership and fair play are at the heart of The Authors Guild’s lawsuit against internet giant Google, which has, without permission from authors and without paying for their copyrighted material, digitized millions of their books while ignoring, as if these were irrelevant, their creators’ claims to ownership. Google has justified this theft by arguing that the use they were making of our property was “transformative,” a public service. They wouldn’t be selling our books for profit, just providing a research tool that displays only snippets, which would fall under the doctrine of “fair use.” More information would be available to more people. Ignoring the original theft, the courts have so far agreed.

I’ve had a number of books appear on Google Books (go here, then do a search for “Dave Mark”). I was never asked my opinion about including these books in the process, and I was certainly never asked permission, even though I own the copyright on most of these.

A real sign of popularity of a book is that moment when someone on the internet makes a copy of the book and puts it on a warez site. I’ve watched this happen again and again. There’s no stopping it. As these downloads start appearing, you can issue takedowns, but the same content will just appear on a different site in a matter of hours. There’s a sense of powerlessness that comes over you. Once you release your book, you no longer have control over it.

That same feeling hit me the first time I saw one of my books on Google Books. As Richard says:

What would I and my fellow authors have done if Google had come to us, respecting our ownership of what we’d created, and asked our permission? I guess we’ll never know, because they didn’t feel the need.

If only they had asked.

Jack Marshall and Steven Perlberg, writing for the Wall Street Journal:

The company mistakenly has been underestimating the number of readers using the News app since its launch, and passing that inaccurate information on to publishers.

Publishers don’t pay to post their content to the News app, but getting an accurate tally of users is important because it can affect their ability to sell advertising and to manage their resources accordingly. Apple allows publishers to keep 100% of revenue when they sell their own ads into the app; they keep 70% of ad revenue if Apple sells ads on their behalf.

Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, said the company missed the error as it focused on other aspects of the product. The company didn’t explain how the problem occurred or say exactly when it might be rectified.

“We’re in the process of fixing that now, but our numbers are lower than reality,” he said. “We don’t know what the right number is,” but he added that it was better to undercount than overcount traffic.

That last is certainly true, but this is an embarrassing hiccough that Apple News did not need.