citpeks
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Apple could have started the search wars with Google in 2018
AppleInsider said:After spending close to $100 million on Bing over a 20-year period, Microsoft is claimed by Google to have reached out to Apple in 2018 with a different offer. Rather than simply being just the default search in Safari, Microsoft offered to potentially sell Apple, or create a joint venture for the engine.The filing quotes Apple SVP of Services Eddy Cue assessing Bing, stating "Microsoft search quality, their investment in search, everything was not significant at all. And so everything was lower. So the search quality itself wasn't as good."
"They weren't investing at any level comparable to Google or to what Microsoft could invest in," Cue continued. "And their advertising organization and how they monetize was not very good either."Wow, is that a typo?Apple receives billions from Google annually to be the default search engine on Apple devices.It gets paid for not having to lift a finger to develop its own search, and an arguably (though increasingly weakening argument) better search product for its users.That's quite a position to be in, for Apple.Google had a seven-year head start on Maps before Apple was forced to strategically develop its own mapping product, in response to Google holding back on features for the iOS version of the app. Some would argue that, despite the billions it has spent on the effort, Apple Maps still lags compared to Google Maps.For Apple to get into search would be a challenge it would need a really compelling reason to undertake, given the favorable situation it sits in.
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Another member of Jony Ive's core design team departs Apple after 32 years
It's funny how articles like this often suggest that Ive (or his team) was, and is, the only industrial designer that Apple has, or should have.People move on, like Ive and his former colleagues have, or retire, like this guy is doing.The Apple aesthetic isn't any kind of secret sauce that only Ive, or his original team, can create, or build upon.If anything, Ive's departure turned out to be a good thing, with a return to usable keyboards, and thought given to practicality, not just sleekness or thin objects d'art.The recent story about Ive's desire to kill the MacBook Air perfectly illustrated his limits; as an industrial designer, not a product manager. Nor software UX designer, as iOS 7 proved.He did great things for Apple, but Ive wasn't god.Ive himself was the hungry new blood that Apple needed at the time to move the company forward. If he, or his cohorts, don't move aside, or haven't developed junior designers to follow the same path than he did, and keep Apple evolving, then that in itself would have been a failure on his part.
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EU backs down, won't force Apple to open iMessage to rivals
bala1234 said:chasm said:Apple and Google adopting the (improved) future RCS standard will be great news for everyone, since it will improve security when Apple and Android devices “talk” as well as bringing media sharing up to par across platforms and apps. Hopefully WhatsApp and others will adopt it as well, as seems likely.I predict that Android users’ messages will still be an unattractive colour on iMessage, but at least for once they’ll be safe and we won’t have to worry about what info we’re sending those people.
I don't think encryption part of what Apple promised at least initially...Apple said that it would be implementing RCS based on the GSMA's standards, and working with it (not Google) to add encryption to the standard.Not using Google's extension, which, as it stands, is how it's being achieved.So, unless some deal gets hashed out, whereby the GSMA adopts Google's extension as part of the standard, or Google adopts whatever the GSMA and Apple cook up (no pun intended), it will be only be a partial "win" for all those clamoring for Apple to adopt RCS.It may bring the other features, but not encryption, and Apple has said that RCS bubbles will still not be blue, for those who care about that kind of idiocy.
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Don't try to sneak an Apple Vision Pro into Germany, the import cops will nab you
Arnold Schwarzenegger was detained a few weeks ago after arriving in Germany, to make sure he paid the taxes on fancy watch (he's a big Audemars Piguet fan).The German tax men don't mess around.But, oddly enough, one can hop straight onto public transit in a city like Munich without ever having to pass through a fare gate. It relies almost entirely on the honor system.One would only be caught not paying the fare if they happen upon one of the random checks by police.
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Forty years of the Mac, the computer for the rest of us
cjcampbell said:I was just starting up my business. I had an IBM PC that I was using with Lotus 1-2-3, buying my electronics and software from the Byte Shop down the road. Bill Gates could still be seen eating at the nearby McDonalds. Then, one day, the Byte Shop was displaying a brand new Mac! First thing I tried to do with it was to copy a floppy disk. It crashed. I wrote it off as junk not ready for the market.Apps like Lotus, WordStar, VisiCalc, and later, PageMaker, are what drove the drove the development of the personal computer, in the same way that health and exercise became the Watch's "killer app." Whether the Vision Pro catches on will also rely on finding its calling.Without DTP (and foundational software like QuickDraw and PostScript), and the creative professionals who supported the Mac niche for years, it probably wouldn't be here today, never mind going mainstream via the iMac and the internet.Apple couldn't have pulled off the PPC transition as smoothly as it did without the Davidian 68k emulator and CodeWarrior.Hardware retrospectives are nice, but only tell half the story.
