Since the iOS 5.1 update, my iPhone 4S has had terrible battery life. I joked about it being related to the new "4G" label displayed on the phone. That joke stopped being funny to me when I needed to charge my phone three times a day.
Next, I noticed that the slide to unlock would occasionally stutter. At least once a day I observed app icons randomly displaying a loading progress bar when they were not being updated.
Yesterday, before Apple's announcement of a dividend and stock buy back, I tweeted this:
As an Apple share holder, I would not like a dividend. There's still a long way to go to secure long term success. That's what cash is for.
— macdrifter (@macdrifter) March 19, 2012 Of course, that's how I felt and how I still feel. But I'll readily admit, the people at Apple know what's best for Apple.
Clark has an excellent point about the boundaries of Steve Jobs' taste. But the real revelation for me is that the Apple logo from the iPad event was just a cut out from the outside banner. Good catch.
Last week I attended a special lecture by the owner of Dogfish Head brewing, Sam Calagione. The talk was titled "Man and Microbe: Exotic Ales Since the Birth of Civilization."
The lecture was more entertaining than it was scientific, but it was still an hour well spent. One of the most insightful things he said, I think applies to anyone that is a great leader. When asked about how an English major became a successful businessman in a moderately scientific industry he responded1
I’m not prone to wearing a tin-foil hat. But I do know when something just isn’t working in my best interest. Right now, Google is not working for me. I stopped using Google calendars over a year ago. I split my calendars between Exchange through work and iCal for home.
Search I switched my search engine many months ago to a combination of DuckDuckGo and Wolfram Alpha.[1] I have not found a need to go back.
Ed Bott recently elaborated on the evils of iBooks 2[1] due to the proprietary nature of the iBooks format. Guess what? iBooks 2 supports EPUB. He can sell his EPUB and still have it viewed on iBooks. I have many EPUB and PDF books that I have added myself. They look like crap. What Ed is apparently mad about is that Apple has created a tool that he wants to use because it’s better but it doesn’t output the format he wants so he can sell it somewhere else.
Disclaimer: I've never published a book.
The uproar with the Apple iBook Author EULA is that the book produced with the tool can not be sold through any outlet other than Apple. My question for anyone that has published a book through a publisher: Can the book be sold through another publisher after it's been edited and formatted for the contracted publisher?
If we think of Apple as the publisher and iBooks Author as the tool that they supply to their authors, then I think the EULA looks consistent with the current model.
Such a nice series by Stephen Hackett at 512 Pixels
It’s only natural to be offended by shameless copying of iOS and iPhone. I think most people remember what phones looked like before the iPhone and now see how the Samsung business model works. I’m willing to bet that somewhere inside Samsung there is a big poster that just reads “Don’t think different, think like Apple.” It feels frustrating. It feels like cheating. But if I really stop to think about it, this is what we all wanted.
Nice article over at HBR by Ananth Raman. In my opinion this is exactly what went wrong with pharmaceutical companies. I'd also argue that it is Apple's indifference to stock price and focus on long-term value that has made them so successful.
