One year ago on October 5, 2011, Steve Jobs passed away. The previous day Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S.  The company has gone on to become the most valuable in the world, but many still think about the man and his achievements.

Today Apple is paying homage to its founder with this heartfelt video and a message from Tim Cook.

A message from Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.

Steve’s passing one year ago today was a sad and difficult time for all of us. I hope that today everyone will reflect on his extraordinary life and the many ways he made the world a better place.

One of the greatest gifts Steve gave to the world is Apple. No company has ever inspired such creativity or set such high standards for itself. Our values originated from Steve and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple. We share the great privilege and responsibility of carrying his legacy into the future.

I’m incredibly proud of the work we are doing, delivering products that our customers love and dreaming up new ones that will delight them down the road. It’s a wonderful tribute to Steve’s memory and everything he stood for.

- Tim

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From David Pogue:

You can still use Google’s maps — on the Web. Visit maps.google.com…You won’t get spoken directions, but you’ll get written directions, public transportation details, live traffic reports and, of course, Google’s far superior maps and data.

He also says Google’s Street View will be coming to iOS devices, and for local restaurants there is the app – Google+ Local. And that should make this a complete workaround.

iPhone owners are rooting for Apple Maps to be a winner, but in the meantime we need to get where were going.

Visit Google Maps for more features available in this workaround.

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Reuters has put up an interesting piece – calling the iPhone 5 the product of Tim Cook. Citing the Apple Maps rollout and possible blunder. “The speed of the global launch that astounded” analysts by getting millions of phones into stores with supply chain perfection. And most importantly for fanboys, his role in the Keynotes where he appears at the end and beginning with brief messages.

It’s the new Apple under Tim Cook and he is molding the company that Steve built – into his own image – again from Reuters:

He has introduced a dividend to pay out part of the more than $100 billion cash stockpile, raised salaries for a rabidly loyal but low-paid workforce in the Apple stories, and sped up product rollouts.

Not to mention opening up Apple to charities – by offering a matching gift program. These are things Steve never would have done, but the world seems okay with that. Shoppers are eagerly buying the iPhone 5, traders are buying Apple stock – it’s still going up – and  the company is still growing.

The only remaining question is can Tim Cook come out with a new product. So far he has only improved and continued the existing line. And that is always a company’s biggest challenge.

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In one corner you have the heavyweight, Google Maps, with a seven-year head start and a vast amount of data. In the other corner you have the underdog with a very big bank account, Apple Maps.

Round one begins with the iPhone 5 – loaded with iOS 6 – removing all traces of Google Maps and replacing it with Apple Maps. So how do they compare?

From Mel Martin of TUAW:

Make no mistake. Maps for iOS 6 is a great achievement for Apple. Starting from basically a blank slate and making some strategic acquisitions and partnerships (TomTom, Placebase, C3, Poly9, Waze) in map data, POI information and 3D fly-over images, Maps is amazing for what it does. On the other hand, comparing it to Google Maps, which has been around since 2004 and leverages the company’s experience and expertise in mapping, is going to leave Apple coming up short.

Another reviewer, Brian Proffitt of ReadWriteWeb:

There are many new features getting introduced in the iOS 6 version of the Maps app, such as turn-by-turn navigation and a new “flyover” mode. But already many reviewers are missing the one thing that the new Maps doesn’t have: Google Maps data.

Instead, Apple’s mapping data is coming from vendors TomTom and Waze, with search data tied in to the Yelp location-based review service. And the new dataset may not just be lacking a little - there could be big gaps.

Which makes this a feature and data war. Who will have the best turn-by-turn navigation and the most useful innovation. And how will Apple complete their data set without using Google’s, which they have sworn to never use.

Of course, Google is firing back with their own update, on the same day Apple Maps is released. From the N.Y. Times Bits Blog:

The Google Maps for Android app (update) will make it easier to search for places on Android phones and personalize searches on maps. (It will also) sync across devices. Say you are making lunch plans and you search for a restaurant on your computer. Later, you pull out your phone to look up its location on Google Maps. If you were logged in to Google on your desktop computer earlier it will suggest the restaurant.

The battle begins with Google far ahead in terms of features and data, but Apple always has a strategy for winning and it usually involves a liberal arts twist. We can expect Google to continue its rapid improvement of Google Maps, like a car accelerating downhill. While Apple goes slowly uphill, working out the bugs in release one, then updating twice a year at their hardware and software Keynotes in September and January.

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From ReadWriteWeb:

The article explains this difference very well:

• Amazon’s approach: sell now, profit later
• Apple: big profits from small devices

An interesting read – ReadWriteWeb

Facebook has finally answered the question that’s been bugging Wall Street and the rest of us, “when are you going to get mobile?”

Yesterday, the answer came as Facebook launched major upgrades to their iPhone and iPad apps. From the N.Y. Times Bits blog:

Those who have suffered from the sluggishness of the current apps can breathe a collective sigh of relief: these new versions are much faster.

The apps look nearly identical to their predecessors. The main difference is that most of their old Web-based code has been replaced with the native programming code used for iOS

Even more, Facebook has gone all Google Plus on the issue (you know Google making social everyone’s responsibility):

In recent interviews, Facebook executives said they have retooled the organization so that every product team is working on mobile, and the company holds weekly training courses on programming for Apple and Android devices.

The Verge is reporting that these updates make the apps twice as fast:

In building a native Facebook app for iOS, the company looked at improving three key places, “the app’s largest pain points” all relating to speed: launching the app, scrolling through the News Feed, and tapping photos inside the News Feed. “We’re twice as fast in all these areas,” Mick Johnson says.

I’ve been playing with the app and the claims appear to be true. This is good news for Facebook fans (and stock holders) because slow apps can be killer for growth.

**Sorry for the “native” joke, but I couldn’t resist

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Mac OS 10.8.1 Mountain Lion released

Apple just released OSX 10.8.1 Mountain Lion via Software Update. The delta update weighs a paltry 7.28MB on my Retina MacBook Pro, but your mileage may vary. Apple did not confirm reports that 10.8.1 improves battery life but many other issues appear to be resolved.

A rather intelligent friend of mine told me that when Apple comes out with something new it’s always best to wait for the stable release. That usually is the next release and typically means the point-one (10.8.1) package.

In this case he was definitely right. My computer has been slowing down like a hog in mud. It’s good to have this release.
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From Jim Dalrymple of The Loop:

According to Apple, the company has seen almost 300 million worldwide visitors so far in its fiscal 2012…To give you some type of comparison, by July 2011, the population of the United States was estimated to be 311 million people.

There is also an interesting data point from Apple’s retail Genius Bar. According to the company, 50,000 people get serviced at a Genius Bar around the world, every single day.

That’s no joke. Stand outside an Apple store for a few minutes and you will see hordes of people, of all ages and types, looking for help.

It’s actually quite impressive that they haven’t had any major problems with customer service.

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Apple Becomes Most Valuable Publicly-Traded Stock Ever

Microsoft’s market capitalization peaked on December 30, 1999, reaching an intraday high of $119.94 per share. With Microsoft having documented 5,160,024,593 outstanding shares the company would have had a market capitalization of $618.89 billion on December 30.

Apple’s most recent quarterly filing listed 937,406,000 outstanding shares as of July 13, 2012, and with the company’s stock price hitting $660.73 today, its market capitalization reached $619.37 billion.

Here come the caveats. If you adjust those 1999 dollars for today’s value Microsoft would be valued at $840+ billion.

Plus, there are several government-owned petroleum companies supposedly worth a whole lot more. The Saudi Arabian oil company, Saudi Aramco, is thought to be worth several trillion dollars and the Chinese company, PetroChina, IPO’ed at over a trillion dollars. But, since they’re not public and/or accountable governments those numbers are suspect.

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The best way to learn about Passbook is to see it in action, the video below auto-starts at 1:32:55 (except on mobile devices):

In my personal quest to shrink my wallet, maybe even get rid of it, I love this feature. No more loyalty cards and gift cards, just my phone.

More on this new app from Apple:

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Happy 10th birthday, John Gruber, of the curation blog, Daring Fireball. A role model of mine in both style and eccentricity. I hope to one day achieve your level of excellence and also prove to the world that being a blogger can provide a happy life for me and my family.

A fellow writer, Robinson Meyer of The Atlantic, also pays tribute to Daring Fireball:

This, from a 2008 interview, is still a better articulation of the joy of reading great sequential writing than you’ll regularly find:

Gruber: I’ve always enjoyed the way that with good columnists, it’s not just that their individual articles stand on their own, but that there’s something greater than the sum of the parts when you follow them as a regular reader.

And he can still better articulate what’s fun and compelling about link-sharing (which he’s been doing since before we deemed it curation) than anyone. From the same interview:

Gruber: There’s a certain pace and rhythm to what I’m going for [when I share links], a mix of the technical, the artful, the thoughtful, and the absurd. In the same way that I strive to achieve a certain voice in my prose, as a writer, I strive for a certain voice with regard to what I link to. No single item I post to the Linked List is all that important. It’s the mix, the gestalt of an entire day’s worth taken together, that matters to me.

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One of the last holdouts retail, video games, looks like it too will disappear. The biggest player, GameStop, who controls nearly two-thirds of the market, has been able to stay alive by pushing used games and devices. Last year the company earned $9.55 billion, 46% of which came from used items.

Unfortunately, that cannot sustain the company as more games go online, available for download. Which makes paying $60 for a cartridge much less appetizing for gamers, and takes away the bulk of GameStop’s earnings. This presents the company with a challenge…what to do next?

Believe it or not, become an Apple retailer. The company has opened an expansive new refurbishment factory for iPhones, iPads, iPod Touches. They hope to apply all that used experience to the booming world of the touchscreen.

Two articles cover this, the first is a summary and the second is a full behind-the-scenes feature:

In an effort to avoid the fate of Blockbuster, Circuit City and others in the remainder bin of failed retailers, GameStop has embarked on a daring, if inglorious, strategy: refashioning itself from a console-game purveyor into a repairer and reseller of Apple gadgets, betting that its retail visibility will prove an advantage. - Summary – SF Gate

“If you want to understand GameStop, you must understand refurbishment,” says GameStop CEO Paul Raines. Behind the tall executive lies a 182,000-square-foot facility filled with workers who are polishing discs, piecing together video game consoles, and rigorously testing pre-owned iPads, iPhones, iPods and Android tablets. It’s called the Refurbishment Operations Center, or ROC for short, and GameStop is giving us a first-hand tour of the $7 million facility. - Behind-the-scenes – The Verge

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You should read Mat Honan’s heartbreaking tale of a hack attack and the ensuing discussion on Techmeme. Much of the story is about Amazon or Apple’s security practices, but I would still advise everyone to turn on Google’s two-factor authentication to make your Gmail account safer and less likely to get hacked.

Two-factor authentication means “something you know” (like a password) and “something you have,” which can be an object like a phone. Here’s a simple video about how it works:

 

 

Please don’t wait to turn on 2-step verification. It’s not that hard, and it will really protect your account. Why not set up two-step authentication right now?

 

Visit Matt Cutts blog to learn more, including FAQ’s

The time has come. We’re finally giving female surfers the love they deserve in a brand-new, all-girls magazine, SALTED. The mag, created by the editors of SURFER Magazine, features the best female surfers on the planet, trips to the most idyllic locales, profiles, interviews, history, fashion features, and more. It’s is a much-overdue homage to women’s surfing, all made with the quality, authenticity, and top-notch imagery you’ve come to expect from SURFER.

Hitting newsstands August 14, SALTED is nearly 100 pages of uninterrupted female surf content in an oversized, glossy format. Find it at your local surf shop or bookstore. The digital version will also be available on the Apple Newsstand beginning August 6.

 

Source: Surfer – Introducing Salted Magazine

Frankie Harrer, one of the many surfers featured in the debut issue of Salted. (Morgan Maassen)

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iMore has learned that Apple is planning to debut the new iPhone at a special event on Wednesday, September 12, 2012, with the release date to follow 9 days later on Friday, September 21. This information comes from sources who have proven accurate in the past.

The iPad mini will be announced at the same September 12 event, as will the new iPod nano. We haven’t heard a release date for the iPad mini yet, but it could be the same as the iPhone 5. It seems likely the new iPod touch will make an appearance on September 12 as well, though we haven’t heard any specific information about that yet either.

Last year, the iPhone 4S was announced on Tuesday, October 4, 2011, and released 10 days later on October 14. The event included minor updates to the iPod line, notably a white iPod touch 4. This year, the iPad 3 was announced on Wednesday, March 7, 2012, and released 9 days later on March 16. The event included a 1080p Apple TV.

 

Source: iMore - Apple iPhone 5 and iPad mini event planned for September 12, iPhone 5 release date for September 21

And, one more rumor from 9to5 Mac about a new iPad:

Finally and probably most controversial, Apple will be updating its full sized iPad line with a thinner design less than a year after release. The new, new iPad design will be tweaked with a new back side mic and a less hot thinner design.

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It’s bold, it’s brash, and it’s 25 pages long. Don’t worry it has a table of contents. If you’re short on time, read the TOC and you’ll be up-to-date. Otherwise, sit back and dig in for a feature rich update on your favorite computer.

Apple’s traditional desktop computing business has suffered many indignities over the past decade. Once Apple’s flagship product line, the Mac first found itself playing second fiddle to the iPod—a mere music player—in the early 2000s. Today, matters are worse; on a graph of Apple’s revenues, the Mac now appears as a thin strip of earth while iOS devices are the mountain that sits upon it.

Apple presented last year’s release of OS X 10.7 Lion as part of a turn “back to the Mac.” Ostensibly, the tagline was Apple’s promise to bring innovations from its mobile operating system back to Mac OS X. But more broadly, it also meant that the Mac would receive more of Apple’s attention.

That attention resulted in some dramatic changes to aspects of the operating system that had not been reconsidered in decades: application launching, the document model, process management—even basics like window resizing and scrolling. As Apple’s newly refocused gaze fell upon its desktop operating system, many parts of it were deemed archaic and unworthy of continued existence.

At the end of last year’s Lion review, I concluded: “[Lion] marks the point where Mac OS X releases stop being defined by what’s been added. From now on, Mac OS X should be judged by what’s been removed.” Unfortunately, the surgery was not a complete success. There were… complications.

 

Source: ars technica - OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion: the Ars Technica review

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Pushing ahead with plans to invest $304 million in Austin, Texas, Apple has secured a deal for three large patches of land adjacent to its existing campus, which — when developed — will expand its presence in the area and result in the creation of more than 3,600 jobs.

The State of Texas offered Apple an investment of $21 million over ten years via its Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF), followed by an $8.6 million grant investment from the City of Austin.

As part of its City deal, Apple would need to invest $56.5 million in new facilities and equipment by the end of 2015, with an additional $226 million investment coming by the end of 2021.

 

Source: The Next Web - Apple closes deal to expand Austin campus, moves ahead with $304 million Texas investment

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I feel like this is one of those big moments that sputters into life – the end of ownership. At least, when it comes to DVDs.

This happened to music a few years back…I mean, who still thinks of owning music with CDs?

With Blu-ray sales slotted to decline in the next few years, the future is owning digital copies of movies not DVDs.

It will be interesting to see how this affects the ownership economy. So many people love their DVD collections, just as people loved their VHS collection and CD collections.

But, storing 20-30 digital movies can take up all your hard drive space, especially for high definition flicks. Whereas, keeping a few thousand songs on your computer didn’t hurt that much.

I bet there will be a race to super-size hard drives (especially on laptops) and build a business around movies in the cloud.

Like Apple is currently doing:

Apple adds 20th Century Fox movies to iTunes in the Cloud, all major studios now on board

Apple and Twentieth Century Fox have reportedly come to an agreement that will finally make the studio’s films available via iTunes in the Cloud. When Apple made movies a cornerstone of the cloud-based initiative (which lets customers redownload previous purchases) earlier this year, the company only had deals in place with four of the “big six” studios — Universal and Fox were the holdouts. It didn’t take long for Universal to sign on and add its films to iTunes in the Cloud, but apparently Apple needed more time to hammer out a viable solution with Fox.

Now we’re able to confirm that Twentieth Century Fox titles no longer carry a warning that they won’t be available from iTunes in the Cloud following purchase. You’re free to delete them from your PC/Mac or iOS device and redownload at will, and the same movies can also be streamed from an Apple TV.

 

Source: The Verge

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A fascinating graphic and the article it is pulled from.

 

Nokia led the wireless revolution in the 1990s and set its sights on ushering the world into the era of smartphones. Now that the smartphone era has arrived, the company is racing to roll out competitive products as its stock price collapses and thousands of employees lose their jobs.

This year, Nokia ended a 14-year-run as the world’s largest maker of mobile phones, as rival Samsung Electronics Co. took the top spot and makers of cheaper phones ate into Nokia’s sales volumes.

Nokia is losing ground despite spending $40 billion on research and development over the past decade—nearly four times what Apple spent in the same period.

Instead of producing hit devices or software, the binge of spending has left the company with at least two abandoned operating systems and a pile of patents that analysts now say are worth around $6 billion, the bulk of the value of the entire company.

 

Source: Wall Street Journal - Nokia’s Bad Call on Smartphones

That coffee you’re drinking while gazing at your iPad? It cost more than all the electricity needed to run those games, emails, videos and news stories for a year.

The annual cost to charge an iPad is just $1.36, according to the Electric Power Research Institute, a non-profit research and development group funded by electric utilities.

By comparison, a 60-watt compact fluorescent bulb costs $1.61, a desktop PC adds up to $28.21 and a refrigerator runs you $65.72.

…assumed that users would charge up every other day.

But there’s an even cheaper way to go than the iPad. EPRI calculated the cost of power needed to fuel an iPhone 4 for year: just 38 cents.

 

via Associated Press

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