» Confidence
Craig Hockenberry:
Apple has a newfound confidence in itself. It’s at the top of its game, and it knows it.
I’d quibble that there’s a difference between Craig Federighi becoming an amazing presenter (to my eye, he’s the best executive currently in the game from any technology company) and the company having confidence. I don’t think the company ever really lost it. But Monday’s keynote hit on all cylinders in a way I don’t think we’ve seen since maybe even the iPhone introduction.
» Swords and Guns and T*ts
It only took 21 episodes for us to have a Turning This Car Around that went off the rails. That’s pretty good, right?
» Apple announces iOS 8
Not surprising that the iPhone 4 is dropped off the compatibility list.
To show how many things Apple had to announce today (like extensions, custom keyboards and the Health app), they didn’t even touch on the fact that the photo app adds time-lapse videos (hat tip to Jay Moltz).
» Apple announces OS X Yosemite
Flatter but not iOS 7 flat and with more transparency.
As someone who used Windows 7 I am not a huge fan of the wide use of transparency. Fortunately, this appears to be more understated than the “filmed in Glaucomavision” of Windows 7. Also, unlike our iOS 7 complaints last year, the icons in Yosemite look terrific.
So much to dig into here from things that were fixed (Airdrop between OS X and iOS) to things that are new (connected states with iOS devices). Apple’s platform is taking it up a notch.
» Sponsor: Doxie Go + Hazel auto-sorting ($35 off this week)
My thanks to Doxie Go for sponsoring the Very Nice Web Site RSS feed this week. Short but true story: we own a Doxie Go and my wife and I fight over who gets to keep it in their office. Boom. You don’t need to know anything else.
If you’re looking for a fantastic way to scan and organize all your paper, consider Doxie Go, a portable document scanner that works anywhere without a computer. Doxie stores up to 400 scans in memory, then syncs to your Mac, then makes it easy to organize and create multi-page PDFs on your desktop or in the cloud.
Here’s a particularly clever workflow: use Hazel to create OCR workflows that automatically sort your Doxie searchable PDFs. By simply creating a rule that looks for, for example, your electric company account number, Hazel will automatically file all your scans at once. It’s like magic. You can store them on your local drive, or in Dropbox for instant access anywhere. Check out Shawn Blanc’s article on how to set it up.
And: this week, Doxie Go is on sale for $164.67 on Amazon (about $35 off).
» ‘Goodbye to All That’
Kara Swisher on Katie Cotton’s retirement:
Not impressed anyway with Cotton’s work? Still all foot-stomping pissed off because you did not get any PR love from her? Grow up.
I don’t have a problem with people complaining that she might have lied to them. I do have a problem with people complaining she didn’t make their jobs easier and berating her with sexist terminology. Grow up, indeed.
» How’d that work out?
GigaOm reports that Motorola will shutter is Texas factory:
The Fort Worth plant, operated in conjunction with Flextronics, primarily assembled the Moto X, Motorola’s high-end smartphone, which can be customized with a variety of bezel colors and case backings. In addition to allowing Motorola to tout its phones as “Made in USA,” the U.S. factory was intended to help Motorola ship out customized devices quickly. But disappointing Moto X sales and higher costs compared to overseas plants made the Fort Worth factory unnecessary.
I’m so old I remember when the Moto X was the latest iPhone killer. And by that I mean I’m more than 10 months old.
» Random Trek
Speaking of podcasts, Scott McNulty is launching a podcast discussing random episodes of Star Trek. I mean, why not?
» It’s official
Apple is acquiring Beats for $3 billion.
As part of the acquisition, Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre will join Apple.