Great article from the NY Times:
Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.
A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.
The article skirts some of the main reasons why types of jobs aren’t coming back” Specifically, no mention is made of the high taxes companies pay in the US (which results in these jobs being filled overseas by ‘contractors’, whom Apple is not liable for).
Jobs is probably right that these jobs are never coming back to the U.S. though. And that scares the hell out of me. One day soon, the Asian companies that produce the hardware will figure out how to produce software that is good enough, and once that happens, the American companies who have used these Asian manufacturing companies will find themselves cut out of the chain, and competing with their manufacturers, who will be able to seriously undercut them.
Category: iPhone,News,Steve Jobs
It’s hard to imagine Apple before the iPod now, but 10 years ago, it didn’t exist yet. Apple was back on track, but it had yet to release a device that could be considered a ‘game changer’. Initially, I don’t think anyone believed that the iPod would have the success that it has had. The early reviews were split on it, with half seeing it for the brilliant device that it was, and the other half only seeing it for what it lacked (Windows compatibility and USB connectivity).
Still, it’s not a stretch to say that the iPod is the device that defined the modern Apple. It definitely gave them the resources and clout to tackle devices like the iPhone and iPad.
Category: Apple,iPod
Lion has been available to the masses for over 2 months now, and the reception has been generally pretty favorable. Distribution of a commercial OS via a downloadable only option has never been tried before, and I think by all accounts, it has been very successful. Still, with any new release, there are those that don’t find the grass greener in the new pasture. Lion brings a lot to the table to be pleased with, but it also brings a fair amount of change to the table as well.
Depending upon your level of interaction, that change might be as minor as Apple’s decision to switch the default scrolling direction. Or, if you are a developer, it might be as complex as requiring you to have your application sandboxed by November 1st if you wish to continue selling it through the Mac App Store.
Apple has always been a company that isn’t afraid to cut ties to the past in order to forge a path to where they believe the future is. In sports parlance, this is ‘skating to where the puck is going to be’. In many cases, Apple is the entity driving the puck itself. From time to time, this has caused some consternation in the Mac community. Yet Apple forges ahead.
Most of the Mac OS X releases to date have been evolutionary. With Lion, Apple has taken the biggest leap yet. With the Mac App Store, LaunchPad, and Sandboxing, I think it is pretty clear where Apple is headed. I don’t subscribe to the theory that Apple will ‘merge’ iOS and Mac OS X. That seems silly to me, as if Apple had felt on OS was sufficient for all devices, it wouldn’t have created iOS from the underlying OS X technology in the first place.
I do, however, believe that Apple is moving to remake the Mac in the likeness of iOS. With Sandboxing, Launchpad, and the memory management changes that have appeared in Lion, they have already taken some great steps in that direction. I wouldn’t be surprised to see future releases of Mac OS X (nee, now just OS X, which in of itself is perhaps quite telling) become more locked down like iOS.
Category: Apple
Apple has posted a FAQ on the MobileMe to iCloud transition. While this details much of what we already know, there are a few bits of surprising information.
The section that perked my ears up:
What happens to the other sync services I use for my Mac?
Syncing of Mac Dashboard widgets, keychains, Dock items, and System Preferences will not be part of iCloud, but will continue to be available for you to use until you move to iCloud. After you move to iCloud or after June 30, 2012, whichever comes first, those sync services will no longer be available. Other MobileMe services that are not transitioning to iCloud (iWeb publishing, Gallery, and iDisk) will continue to be available through June 30, 2012, even after you move to iCloud.
.Mac/MobileMe sync was the main reason I paid for MobileMe, and .Mac before it. In my opinion, it was about the only part of MobileMe that Apple got right, and now it is killing it? Apple shouldn’t be killing this – it should be extending this Sync strategy to it’s other devices.
If you’ve used Sync, you already know it’s a life saver. If you own multiple Macs and buy new ones on a regular basis, MobileMe Sync allowed you to get that Mac setup to your liking in just a few minutes. MobileMe Sync allowed me to keep the settings for Coda & Transmit on all my Macs in sync. It allowed me to keep all of my Docks setup just the way I like. It made sure all my Macs had the same Widgets. It was one of Apple’s best services. It is definitely the service that kept me ponying up for .Mac/MobileMe all those years.
And now Apple is killing it.
Category: Apple,iCloud
Apple has revealed that Lion Server will cost $50, and like it’s client sibling, be offered via the Mac App Store exclusively. The $50 price for Lion Server is in addition to the $30 price of Lion clent.
This is an amazing price reduction. Snow Leopard Server was priced at $499. Now, for $80, you can get Lion Server.
Bravo Apple, Bravo.
Category: Apple,Mac App Store
This year, Apple has telegraphed the main topics for discussion at the WWDC keynote. iOS 5, Lion, and iCloud get top billing in today’s keynote. Of course, the devil is in the details, and here’s my list of questions for each of these technologies.
iOS 5: Notifications are most surely getting a revamp. I expect that a good bit of the main Springboard UI will be revamped as well, hopefully giving us something better than the icon view we’ve had now since 2007. Many are expecting iOS 5 to get over the air updates, which I think is a pretty good bet since iCloud is getting released at the same time.
The $64,000 question: Will 2011 be the year that iOS finally untethers from iTunes?
Lion: There’s not much left that is secret about Lion, except for the release date and price. We know that distribution via the App Store is a given. I expect Apple will have to make DVDs available for users of Mac OS X 10.5 or earlier who wish to upgrade.
The $64,000 question: When will it be released and what will it cost? My guess – June 14th and $49 from the Mac App Store, $99 on DVD.
iCloud: What we know is that Apple has signed all the major labels to allow their content to be distributed via iCloud. So iCloud will definitely be one part music locker, another part streaming service for tracks that you own. What we don’t know is whether iCloud will replace MobileMe. I expect that since MobileMe has been a complete and utter failure, that Apple will want to sweep away any mention of it and begin anew. So I expect all MobileMe services to become iCloud services, with the me.com domain serving as the main page of entry, along with iCloud.com.
The $64,000 question: Will iCloud be free? Will it come with all the perks that MobileMe features (email, syncing between Macs, storage space, document collaboration for iWork)?
Category: Apple,WWDC
So everyone is up in arms over the revelation that the iPhone (and 3G iPad) collects and stores information on every place it has been. More accurately, it stores information and location on every cellphone tower it has connected to. The longitude/latitude data that is being stored is obtained by cellphone triangulation, which iOS uses to determine location when no GPS hardware or signal are available.
The iPhone stores this information without your consent on both your iPhone and on your computer, if you are syncing your iOS 3G capable device to your computer and letting it create a backup of your devices data.
Pete Warden and Alasdaid Allan have crafted an app that scans this information, and places the coordinates on a map, along with a date scrubber to see where your device has been.
Looking over my data, it showed what I already knew – that apart from trips over the last year to Minnesota (business), Florida (family) and North Carolina, I lead a pretty boring life.
However, there is one anomaly that was odd.
I bought my iPhone 4 new last year on the day it launched, June 24th. However, the location data on my iPhone shows that it traveled down US95, right outside Las Vegas on June 23rd. I’m assuming this where the iPhone entered the country on it’s trip from China, and then was routed to a plane that took it to the Apple Store in Buford, GA.
The odd thing is the phone wasn’t activated until the next day. I had assumed that for the phone to log the location data, it needed an activated SIM card. Apparently, that isn’t the case.
So apparently your 3G iOS device will log it’s connection to each and every cell tower it connects with, even if it hasn’t been activated yet.
Either that, or my iPhone spent the night before it’s launch having a grand old time in sunny Las Vegas.
Category: Apple,iPhone
Spot on assessment from Ted Landau:
The very first slogan used to advertise the original iPod, back in 2001, was “1,000 songs in your pocket.” A coming slogan for the iPhone could well be “the only thing in your pocket.”
I’ve been thinking recently about all the stuff I used to carry around that the iPhone has made obsolete for me. Watch. GPS. iPod. Portable gaming device. Consumer grade digital camera. Phone. Put simply, the iPhone is the ultimate swiss army knife.
Category: iPhone,Link Roundup,Opinion
If you’ve been scouring your city looking for an iPad 2, salvation may have just come from the most unlikely of sources. Radio Shack has confirmed that about 500 of their stores (although they won’t confirm which ones) are set to get stock of the iPad 2 tomorrow.
If the Shack is in your neighborhood, and you’ve been trying to land an iPad, this might be your best opportunity.
Category: iPad
