Month: November 2013

Photo Stream Limits Substantially Increased (Update: Probably Not) ⇥ support.apple.com

In August, Bradley Chambers wisely observed that Photo Stream was almost the inverse of what it should be:

Apple should store ALL photos/video taken with your iPhone and just store the most recent 1000 (or 30 days) locally on the device.

That’s pretty much what’s going to happen starting today. From an Apple support article:

There is no limit to the number of photos you can upload to My Photo Stream over time, but iCloud limits the number of photos that can be uploaded within a given hour, day, or month to prevent unintended or excessive use. […]

There is no limit to the amount of photos you can upload to My Photo Stream over longer periods (such as several months or years). Photos uploaded to My Photo Stream or shared photo streams are not counted against your iCloud Storage.

An automatic, hassle-free backup of every photo you’ve ever taken? That’s sublime, and exactly how Photo Stream should work. And you can simply delete any photos from your Camera Roll which you don’t want to keep locally (though I believe there’s some sort of cache for Photo Stream). Great news.

Now all Apple needs to do is make iOS device backups not count against iCloud’s storage limit — another one of Chambers’ suggestions.

Update: Apparently, Photo Stream (possibly) keeps full-sized copies of photos on the device in addition to the copy in the Camera Roll. Wouldn’t it be simpler if the Photo Stream album replaced the Camera Roll? Isn’t the Camera Roll album now redundant?

Update 2: Looks like I was wrong here. Erik K on Twitter pointed me to this knowledgebase article which states that…

The photos you upload to My Photo Stream are stored in iCloud for 30 days to give your devices plenty of time to connect and download them.

So you can upload (pretty much) all the photos you want, but they’ll only be there for 30 days. Shared Photo Streams don’t have a time limit. What a shame. My apologies for getting this one wrong.

Basic Math Matters ⇥ mac360.com

Kate MacKenzie of Mac 360:

The company’s price to earnings ratio is among the strongest ever for a company Apple’s size. Numerical indicators say all is well and the future looks rosy.

So, what’s wrong with the stock’s price? Fear. Stock market analysts are a crazy, mixed up bunch of fickle and fruitcake-laden impostors who act more like 12-year-old girls at a slumber party.

Amazon loses big money and analysts call that a good sign of disruption. Google’s Android OS becomes the dominant smart phone OS in units, and analysts declare that ‘Android is winning.’ That, despite the fact that Amazon and Google do not make money with their wares.

I don’t think it’s incorrect to say that the abilities of Google and Amazon to offer products with next-to-zero profit margins is a disruptive ability. That they are able to do so while placating investors is equally talented. But I believe it is a complete myth that Apple cannot sell higher-priced, high-margin products against free or inexpensive products.

It, too, is possible that Apple’s market share will not significantly increase against free products (though it could, based on recent iPhone sales), but this does not matter. As far as investors should be concerned, Apple will continue to be an extremely healthy company with rising sales, even if other manufacturers are able to produce cheaper products which sell in greater numbers.

MacKenzie points this out in the final paragraph:

Customers are lining up to buy iPhones, iPads, Macs, and all the add-on wares they can afford. Apple’s real numbers and trends are solid and going upward and forward. Despite the executive boardroom adjustments, and desperate competitors giving away their products for free, the numbers still don’t lie.

Apple’s sales are extremely strong, and this will be a record-breaking first quarter for the company. But it’s imperative to understand that their company strategy isn’t — and has never been, since the “New Apple” of post-1997 — to necessarily sell the most of something. What matters is that they are able to sell boatloads of stuff at price points at which both investors and customers are happy.1

  1. Don’t get me wrong: we all want stuff for less. However, Apple has proved constantly that they are able to sell all of the products that they can produce quarter after quarter. ↥︎

The Kübler-Ross Stages of BlackBerry

  1. July 3, 2012: Denial

    Research In Motion CEO Thorsten Heins says, “there’s nothing wrong with the company as it exists right now.”

  2. July 28, 2012: Anger

    As it was expected that some major changes were next on the cards for famous blackberry maker, RIM (Research in Motion), finally cat is out of the bag and Alexandra Zagury has been appointed as RIM’s new MD and VP for Southern Africa and SA.

    […]

    According to her, US media has been quite harsh towards RIM and depicting a gloomy picture of RIM is absolutely not justifiable, that too when RIM is trying to make a comeback and struggling through hard times.

    While lashing out at US media critics, she stated that it’s quite ironical [sic] that US, being one of the most developed nations of the world, has nothing great to offer in the telecommunications field.

  3. September 25, 2012: Bargaining

    RIM has a very difficult road to travel with BlackBerry 10: it needs to get a critical mass of apps by launch to even get a first look from consumers, let alone a second one. To prepare developers, the company has had to keep them up to speed by trickling out information about the next platform instead of unveiling it all at once with a big splash. That has made for a series of teases and hints, but not a complete picture of RIM’s mobile strategy.

    Time will tell whether this strategy of slowing revealing details instead of making a single, big announcement is the right move. If RIM is right, it will help boost the app ecosystem in time for launch without detracting from the excitement a single launch could have garnered. If RIM is wrong, by the time BlackBerry 10 devices ship, they might feel old hat.

  4. October 9, 2012: Depression

    Research In Motion is not likely to launch the much-anticipated BlackBerry 10 operating system software until March 2013, Jefferies analyst Peter Misek asserts in a research note. To date, the company has only said it expects to debut the first BB 10 devices in the calendar first quarter.

    “We had hoped for a January launch but now see a March launch as more likely,” he writes. That would mean no sales of the next generation phones in the February quarter. “Also, our checks point to a tough November quarter, with replenishment rates decreasing as channel partners are cautious on holding RIM inventory. We think the business uncertainty means parties are unlikely to acquire or license from RIM until BB10 launches.”

  5. November 7, 2013: Acceptance

    The signs do not look good. On November 4th, six weeks after BlackBerry said that its biggest shareholder, Fairfax Financial, wanted to take the ailing Canadian smartphone-maker private for $4.7 billion in cash, the sale was called off. BlackBerry instead declared that it would raise $1 billion in debt, convertible into 16% of its shares. Fairfax, a Toronto holding company that focuses on insurance but owns 10% of BlackBerry, is taking a quarter of the issue. Barbara Stymiest, who chairs BlackBerry’s board, called this “a significant vote of confidence in BlackBerry and its future”. The stockmarket called it a flop: the share price, already a fraction of what it once was (see chart), fell by 16%.

Khoi Vinh on Everpix ⇥ subtraction.com

When almost any service shuts down, it’s usually a teachable but brief farewell. Losing Everpix is like losing a friend, though — it was such a promising service which should have succeeded because their product was so damn good.

Wait, Wasn’t Twitter Supposed to Be Dead by Now? ⇥ splatf.com

In less than twelve hours, Twitter will go public with a valuation of over $18 billion. Two years ago, Dan Frommer compiled a short list of all the times Twitter was supposed to be “dead”, like this one by Tom Warren, then at Neowin:

The question remains is Plurk a Twitter killer? If it gets the same kind of attention that Twitter has then it certainly has the ability to.

To my enormous surprise, Plurk still exists, and they have a Twitter account with 72 followers. Twitter does not have a Plurk account.

A List of Features Returning to iWork ⇥ support.apple.com

Apple, in a support article euphemistically titled “About the new iWork for Mac: Features and compatibility”:

In rewriting these applications, some features from iWork ’09 were not available for the initial release. We plan to reintroduce some of these features in the next few releases and will continue to add brand new features on an ongoing basis.

A similar article was posted after Final Cut Pro X was released. I’ll be glad to see the return of a customizable toolbar, among many other features.

You’ve Been a Naughty Search Engine (Whip Crack) ⇥ online.wsj.com

Ruth Bender and Sam Schechner, Wall Street Journal:

In a closely watched case brought by former Formula One racing chief Max Mosley, Paris’s Tribunal de Grande Instance said that Google must remove nine images from its search engine after Mr. Mosley sued in an effort to get the web giant to automatically filter the images and delete any links to them. […]

The images Google was ordered to remove are from a sex orgy that was secretly filmed in 2008. News Corp’s defunct News of the World published details and hidden-camera footage in which Mr. Mosley engages in sadomasochistic role-play with women. Courts in both the U.K. and France later ruled them a breach of privacy.

Mosley has gone through an awful lot of effort in his attempt to remove some (admittedly embarrassing and illegally-obtained) images from the web. It’s all going to be for nought, though — once something is on the internet, the chances of it being eradicated completely are almost zero.

As of right now, searching Google Images for “Max Mosley” shows references to those pictures before scrolling; the actual images are just a few rows below that (not to mention the autocomplete suggestions). Bing isn’t any better, really — it, too, suggests different categories across the top, and the first is “Max Mosley romp”.

Bing didn’t get the court order that Google did, so if you want to see pictures of a 73 year old businessman exploring his sadomasochist tendencies, you’ll have to use Bing.

Like Cracking a Nut With a Sledgehammer ⇥ androidbeat.com

Stefan Constantinescu, Android Beat:

The other two important things I’ve discovered have to do with displays. In less than two months, we’re going to enter 2014, and if Samsung’s slides are to be believed, we’re going to have devices with AMOLED panels that have a pixel per inch rating of 560. The company also says we’re going to have 4K displays, in smartphones, at some point in 2015. Overkill? Never, give me sharpness or give me death.

This seems awfully similar to the LG G2’s rewritten audio stack capable of supporting 24/192 audio, which has a spectrum so large that its extremes are inaudible to any human being. I’m sure a 4K display will look beautiful, but I can hardly see the pixels on my 326 PPI iPhone, even when I bring it right up to my eyeball. What practical advantages does a 4K display have?

Apple’s Releases Report on Government Information Requests (PDF Link) ⇥ images.apple.com

As with the reports released by Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, Apple has only been allowed to disclose data affecting US residents in a range, as opposed to the specific numbers for other countries. Apple doesn’t like that:

We strongly oppose this gag order, and Apple has made the case for relief from these restrictions in meetings and discussions with the White House, the U.S. Attorney General, congressional leaders, and the courts. Despite our extensive efforts in this area, we do not yet have an agreement that we feel adequately addresses our customers’ right to know how often and under what circumstances we provide data to law enforcement agencies.

Even with the provided ranges, it’s very clear that US data requests are significantly higher than those from other countries.

There’s this, too:

Perhaps most important, our business does not depend on collecting personal data. We have no interest in amassing personal information about our customers. We protect personal conversations by providing end-to-end encryption over iMessage and FaceTime. We do not store location data, Maps searches, or Siri requests in any identifiable form.

Everpix Is Shutting Down ⇥ everpix.com

The well-received and highly-regarded photo syncing service Everpix will be completely shut down on December 15; they are switching to read-only mode as of today:

It’s frustrating (to say the least) that we cannot continue to work on Everpix. We were unable to secure sufficient funding in order to properly scale the business, and our endeavors to find a new home for Everpix did not come to pass. At this point, we have no other options but to discontinue the service.

Casey Newton of the Verge wrote an in-depth article about the shutdown.

It’s truly unfortunate that such a great product could not secure funding while yet another crummy social network can be valued at a billion dollars. These guys are some of the best engineers and they managed to produce a product that was useful and engaging, but it wasn’t able to succeed in a VC market dominated by people looking for the next Facebook, Instagram, or other free, ad-supported social network. Terrible.

Skating Towards the Goal ⇥ stratechery.com

Ben Thompson:

Steve Jobs famously used the Wayne Gretzky quote: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been” to wrap up the iPhone introduction.

Since then, a popular criticism of Microsoft is directly ripped off from this: that they are continually skating to where the puck has been. And while that’s arguably true in a narrow sense, it misses the bigger picture: Apple may very well be Wayne Gretzky, performing ballet on skates and seeing what others don’t see. But the second greatest goal scorer in NHL history is Gordie Howe, known not for his grace but for his strength, durability, and willingness to mix it up. There is virtue in the single-minded pursuit of a goal, and the absolute refusal to be deterred.

I don’t think Microsoft’s problem is a lack of innovation; rather, I think it has been a lack of excellence in execution. Microsoft has continuously demonstrated excellence in concept and ideation in the past several years, from the tile concept of Windows Phone to the Xbox Kinect.

Where they have stumbled is in clearly defining their vision for customers, and in their execution of that vision. Windows is a confusing mix of tablet and desktop metaphors, while the Surface lineup is bifurcated for barely-comprehensible reasons. And I don’t think that this inability to execute is unrelated to their inability to define this vision for customers; I really think that Microsoft is uncertain where they stand in 2013.

So, to relate this back to the oddly-entrenched hockey metaphor that Thompson refers to, I think Microsoft is simultaneously trying to be both Gretzky and Howe: they want to skate to where the puck is going to be while steamrolling over anyone in their way. But I think the negative attributes of this approach have become apparent: they’re too big to nimbly steer, but too varied to have a singular set of values in mind.

I don’t think Microsoft should be like Apple, or Google, or any other company; I don’t think any company should necessarily take the strategy of another company. Apple wouldn’t be better off if they started making all of their products free and ad supported, à la Google, would they? But perhaps a series of smaller companies operating more-or-less autonomously under a Microsoft holding group might produce better products.

Q Branch’s Customer Support Guidelines ⇥ vesperapp.co

Dave Wiskus:

If a customer writes to Q Branch support, they get a reply. No exceptions. This may become more difficult over time, but for now the volume is low enough that I only spend — tops — an hour a day talking to customers. A very small price to pay to let our users know that we’re real people.

I greatly admire companies which value this level of customer service. If they’re willing to put this much effort into ensuring every email gets a reply, imagine how much time and effort they put into making sure their product is just right.

Apple Confirms Next US Factory in Arizona ⇥ pocket-lint.com

This factory will be dedicated to producing synthetic sapphire, currently used for the home button and camera lens cover of the iPhone 5S, and one of the hardest materials known. While Gorilla Glass is extremely strong and hardened, sapphire blows it away. If a future iPhone has a display made of sapphire, it will be virtually scratch-proof.

Apple’s iTunes Remote App Updated ⇥ appleinsider.com

Some really nice improvements to this oft-overlooked app, including a Now Playing view which is so nice that I have to wonder why it isn’t the Now Playing view for the iOS 7 Music app. I’ve also noticed that it appears to retain a connection to iTunes better than previous versions. Good stuff.

Just Find My Friends and iBooks to go, now, in terms of major updates necessary for a iOS 7-complete suite.

Chrome’s Insane Password Security Strategy, Redux ⇥ plus.google.com

In August, Elliott Kember discovered that you could view all of the saved passwords in plain text in any user’s Chrome browser simply by typing chrome://settings/passwords into the address bar. Head of Chrome security Justin Schuh inexplicably found no major issue:

The only strong permission boundary for your password storage is the OS user account. So, Chrome uses whatever encrypted storage the system provides to keep your passwords safe for a locked account. Beyond that, however, we’ve found that boundaries within the OS user account just aren’t reliable, and are mostly just theater.

I thought this was ridiculous:

… this just seems like a silly way to rationalize a plainly poor decision. Using no security at all is not better than modest security.

Google must have agreed, because there’s a new experimental flag in the new version of Chromium, according to evangelist François Beaufort:

Once you’ve enabled the chrome://flags/#enable-password-manager-reauthentication flag, user who’s trying to reveal a plain text password in chrome://settings/passwords will be prompted to reauthenticate with the User Mac OS password.

Good. With any sense at all, this will be the default for Chrome going forward.

Update: Reader Tom Hagopian points out that iCloud Keychain does not require a passcode, and that if no passcode is set, you can view any password saved with Safari or synced with iCloud. If you set a passcode, it will prompt for it before viewing each password. So, set a passcode.

BlackBerry-Fairfax Takeover Dies; Thorsten Heins Out ⇥ theglobeandmail.com

Thorsten Heins wasn’t able to sell and messed up the critical BlackBerry 10 launch, but don’t worry about his retirement — like most ousted executives, Heins has a cushy escape package. As for the company, well, it will struggle on. Hopefully they can get someone in charge who is excited about the potential of building back up a company which is down and out for the count.

Or, you know, sending it to the farm.

Workplace Equality Is Good for Business ⇥ online.wsj.com

Tim Cook, in an editorial for the Wall Street Journal:

As we see it, embracing people’s individuality is a matter of basic human dignity and civil rights. It also turns out to be great for the creativity that drives our business. We’ve found that when people feel valued for who they are, they have the comfort and confidence to do the best work of their lives.

Update Nov. 4 Link updated to non-paywall version.