Year: 2016

Apple’s Jonny Ive’s $300.00 Product Book – Much more than an ego trip

Dan Uff November 19, 2016 0

(Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Jonny Ive DID make a $300.00 Apple product book).

“Increasingly, some Apple fans think Jony Ive has lost it. He’s killing ports and headphone jacks left and right. The latest MacBooks value form over function. He’s designing gold watches for the 1 percent,” Leander Kahney writes for Cult of Mac. “And now his glossy new photo book, Designed by Apple in California, looks like a $300, linen-bound ego trip.”

“The giant, 300-page book is a retrospective of the products developed by Ive’s celebrated industrial design team. Filled with 450 photos of Apple products, the book was eight years in the making and required nothing short of the rethinking of paper itself,” Kahney writes. “It’s printed on custom-milled sheets with gilded silver edges, using special low-ghost ink. It comes in two sizes and costs an arm and a leg ($199 for the smaller version costs; $299 for the bigger one).”

“But here is why the book is a worthy effort,” Kahney writes. “Woking with Jobs, Ive’s team developed an amazing string of hit products: iMac, iPod, PowerMac Cube, titanium PowerBooks, iPhone, iPad and so on. During this time, the design team got little or no recognition… Meanwhile, Jobs hogged the spotlight, getting all the praise and credit. The public perception is that Jobs dreamed up Apple’s products from whole cloth. In reality, many of them sprang directly from the creative minds in Apple’s design studio… Designed by Apple in California sets the record straight, at least a little bit.”

Read more in the full article here.

Is your WiFi suddenly going down? Have an Apple Airport? Try this:

Dan Uff November 19, 2016 0

By: Dan Uff, owner

Over the past few weeks, I have been having problems with my WiFi single suddenly going down. This would mainly happen during the night time hours. I even went as far as to purchase another Airport Express. But I didn't want to give up the Extreme right away beings that I use that as a backup device for one of my MacBook Pros.

The only remedy is to physically unplug the Airport from the back, wait about 30 seconds, and then plug it back in. Everything would be ok until the next day or evening.

So, the other night, it went down again. I did what I said above, and then (without knowing it) I left it on its side, with the top facing all of the computers that needed WiFi. That was 3 nights ago, and it hasn't gone down since.

Yes, it could be a fluke. But I'll take it!

Verizon Customers: Do you have an iPhone 7? You maybe being “Throttled”

Dan Uff November 19, 2016 0

“It turns out not all iPhone 7 [units] are created equal,” Ian King and Scott Moritz report for Bloomberg. “The latest Apple Inc. smartphones that run on Verizon Communications Inc.’s network are technically capable of downloading data faster than those from AT&T Inc. Yet in testing, the two phones perform about the same, according to researchers at Twin Prime Inc. and Cellular Insights.”

“Neither firm is clear on the reason, but Twin Prime says it may be because Apple isn’t using all the potential of a crucial component in the Verizon version,” King and Moritz report. “‘The data indicates that the iPhone 7 is not taking advantage of all of Verizon’s network capabilities,’ said Gabriel Tavridis, head of product at Twin Prime. ‘I doubt that Apple is throttling each bit on the Verizon iPhone, but it could have chosen to not enable certain features of the network chip.'”

“It would be an unusual step for a major phone company to restrain its devices. Normally, companies battle to make the fastest, most reliable handsets. Apple may be doing this because it wants to ensure a uniform iPhone experience, according to analysts,” King and Moritz report. “‘They don’t want one version to get the reputation that it is better,’ said Jan Dawson, founder of technology advisory firm Jackdaw Research LLC.”

Read more in the full article here.

Apple’s Craig Federighi: Automation Tech WILL continue in MacOS

Dan Uff November 18, 2016 0

On Thursday, we reported that a key member of Apple's Automation Technology team was let go, setting off speculation that Apple will be removing its Automation tools (i.e. Automator, AppleScript) from MacOS.

A 9to5Mac reader (who asked to remain anonymous) emailed Apple software exec Craig Federighi about the future of automation on the Mac.

Craig Federighi’s reply says that Apple will at least continue supporting the automation workflows for the foreseeable future. Although it doesn’t necessarily promise the systems will receive any new major features.

So, there you have it. Right from the horses mouth.