The vast majority of iPhones and Macs are manufactured and assembled in China so when Apple in 2012 announced that its partner Flextronics would produce the Mac Pro chassis at its manufacturing plant on the outskirts of Austin, Texas, some people were expectedly skeptical.
Not only pundits, but big media outlets such as Bloomberg and WSJ have been pushing the narrative that the “bad news is piling up for Apple” due to production cuts, supplier woes, the end of unit sales reporting and so forth. If you read those stories, all that writers seem to be obsessed with are things like unit sales, billions in revenue, margins and stuff like that.
President Donald Trump has implied that the US government might place a ten percent tariff on iPhones, Mac notebooks and other computers imported from China.
Apple's Jony Ive yesterday delivered his Stephen Hawking Fellowship lecture at the Cambridge Union Society as part of winning its Stephen Hawking Fellowship award in September.
Apple recently has sealed a deal with Amazon to sell an expanded range of products, including iPhones and iPads, on the massively popular e-commerce platform. Counterpoint Research says it's a win-win game for both firms, with Apple being able to better manage pricing, warranties and the overall customer experience. But what about the small sellers?
Mac mini is a BYOKDM purchase, meaning the miniature computer requires that you Bring Your Own Keyboard, Display and Mouse. Thank to Astropad's awesome Luna Display dongle for the Mac, your iPad Pro can actually become the primary display for your Mac mini.
Apple has a plan B as iPhone demand peaks, but many of its suppliers do not.
The average American picks up their smartphone 52 times per day, an increase over the 47 times they looked at their phones per day on average last year.
Twitter still won't let you edit published tweets despite rumors about such a feature dating back to 2013. Indeed, how hard could building an Edit button for tweets be?
Photo haring service Flickr, now owned by SmugSmug, caused a commotion when it recently announced that its 1TB accounts will be downgraded to up to a thousand photos and videos. The free 1TB tier used to support unlimited downloads, but not anymore as SmugSmug looks to monetize its Flickr acquisition by introducing new perks for Pro accounts.
Chuq Von Rospach has a great piece about how Apple could have avoided much of the controversy following last week's Mac event. It's a great read, but the one line I will remember is that one:
We demand Apple innovate, but we insist they don’t change anything.
This truly resonated with me because it's a feeling I've had for a long time but never was able to express in a clear and simple manner. Chuq did in in just eleven words.
Read the whole piece when you have a few minutes.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal about his new role as a Broadway producer, Scott Forstall had few but nice things to say about Apple:
Asked about the split, Mr. Forstall said he was “so proud of the thousands of people I worked with [at Apple] and with whom I remain friends. I am delighted that they continue to turn out great and beloved products.”
The whole interview is an interesting read, along as you care about either Scott Forstall or musicals in general.
