This is the video that opened Apple's WWDC: it's a paean to the app developers of the world, without whom I wouldn't now be talking to you. (Just to say this to you, I'm using Editorial, Safari, YouTube and WordPress on iPad).
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Now iTunes Radio is rubbish
I like it. I was listening to iTunes Radio for some hours this morning. Did get sick of the ads again, but I like the music and I’m not sure I’m alone in this. But allegedly, reportedly, I am because rivals Pandora and Spotify are far better – and because Apple was too arrogant to see this.
“Pandora is an awesome radio that blows iTunes Radio out of the water. Seriously, iTunes Radio sucks and it sucks because of Apple’s arrogance,” one former, mid-level [Apple] employee said. “I was floored by the decision-making skills by management over and over again.”
Apple employees confirmed that management actively ignored iTunes’ streaming competitors, with some managers refusing to open or use Spotify. One source said that as recently “as last year,” some members of management didn’t even know that Spotify was an on-demand streaming service, assuming it was just a radio service.
“The management in particular were pretty much tone-deaf in what Spotify was and that’s why they’re panicking now,” the source said. “They didn’t understand how Spotify worked, which is why they thought iTunes Radio would be a Spotify killer.”
“Arrogant” Apple Managers are the Reason Apple Needs Beats – Aylin Zafar, Buzzfeed (5 June 2014)
I don’t know. It has the ring of truth yet the piece as a whole is so down on iTunes Radio that I doubt the details. Still, it’s an interesting read and if right, may mean that Apple’s new purchase of Beats will lead to something better.
It’s an ugly headline that has Apple in it twice but otherwise you believe those quotes, don’t you?
A song about WWDC and a mocking video of us who watch
I hardly know which to show you first. Let’s go with the song, The Craig Federighi Show:
And with that in your head, here’s what it (allegedly) looks like to outsiders as you watch an Apple announcement:
Embarrassingly true: how WWDC is watched
Specifically, how it’s watched by me. And so many others, too.
WWDC: What I’ll use and what firms will copy
This is going to be the norm for all computers soon but Macs soonest. You’re walking through your house writing a quick email on your iPhone and by the time you get to your desk, it’s becoming a long email. You’re wishing you hadn’t started it on the wee small screen there but you’re committed to it so you finish.
Not any more. From later this year when OS X Yosemite and iOS 8 are out, you’ll just put your iPhone down and carry on typing on your Mac. Exactly where you were. If it’s that long a bleedin’ email, you could then just pick up your iPad and head out of the house still writing it.
I can’t say I’ve ever wanted to between all three like that but I have regularly done that business with writing an email on my iPhone. I have very often had to leave for a meeting and therefore had to set things up on my iPad before I go. So the idea of just picking it up and going, I will do this. I will use this.
Apple calls it HandOff, as in handing off work to someone else or in this case some other machine. Samsung will probably call it OffHand and I rather like that better. But soon enough nobody will call it anything at all because this alchemy will be something normal that everybody uses everywhere.
I’ll also use this new business that if there’s no wifi for your iPad, it will connect to your phone and use that’s 3G or 4G connection. I do this now through tethering and it works fine, but it’s something else to remember to do. Something else to fiddle with instead of just working.
I am very big on not having to fiddle, not having to set up, not have to faff through a Wizard or something, but instead just getting on with the work I want to do.
That’s the big takeaway from this year’s WWDC for me. It’s really why I use and like Macs so that the annual announcement had more of this for both the Macs’ OS X and the iPhone/iPad’s iOS, I like that.
Speaking of iOS 8 and speaking of speaking, the only thing I wanted to see come some day was the ability to just talk to Siri on my iPhone instead of tapping a button first. Got it. The feature – it’s called HeySiri because that’s what you do, you say “Hey, Siri” and I’m not wild about that – will only work when the iPhone is plugged in but that’s fine. I add a lot of reminders to OmniFocus while I’m driving so that’s more than fine, that’s tremendous.
Speaking of more speaking of speaking, I’ve already tried an application that ostensibly let me make and receive phone calls through my Mac. It was rubbish. I regretted spending the money. But the odds are that with it part of OS X Yosemite, Apple will have made it work better. So I’m pre-sold on that one too.
I watched the WWDC video late last night and it was full of many little and large nuggets like this. Many, many times I’d nod thinking yep, I’m having that.
I did look at it from a very specific, biased view of simply what I was interested in and what I thought yep about. Possibly the best general roundup of all that was announced was done over on Wired. Do take a look, would you?
Especially as I did 5am-2am last night and swear to god I can’t remember who I am right now.
Jeff Goldblum and Steve Jobs on connecting to the internet
Inspired by the video of today’s teenagers reacting to how the internet was in 1990 and also by how today is WWDC day where Apple announces something or other, let me show you two things.
One is the Apple way of getting online back in the olden days:
And then there’s this. This is the Apple announcement in 1999 when Steve Jobs demonstrated wifi. It’s now impossible to imagine there was a time we didn’t have this so, strangely, it’s also impossible to conceive how jolting this Jobs presentation was. As ever, wifi existed before, but as ever, you wouldn’t know it from how no other firm got us using it so completely.
So, about those Beats headphones
Please picture us having a mug of tea and chatting entirely without the aid of research or statistics, possibly therefore without even facts.
Beats headphones aren’t as good as we’re told.
I was in the aforementioned tea and chat situation last night with a friend. Where you might and a surprising (to me) number of people turn to me for information about Apple, this friend is the guy you would and I do turn to for anything to do with music and hifi.
Let’s call him Steve.
No reason.
I asked Steve about Beats music because I hadn’t heard of it before Apple was in talks to buy the service, its headphones and its people. Steve had heard of it before. He can even pronounce the name of its head guy, Jimmy Iovine, with confidence.
He agrees with just about most things we suspect: he thinks that yes, Apple bought Beats in order to get Iovine. He knows his streaming music and why Beats is considered good at it even though it hasn’t very many listeners compared to Spotify.
But the other thing he knows, as an audiophile, is that the Dr Dre headphones by Beats are not perfect. He doesn’t like them at all but I went searching online and found a lot of praise from them for various corners of the audiophile universe. Except Steve’s problem with them is a problem for every review and every reviewer I could find: these headphones are made to suit bass-heavy music.
Great if you like bass, not so much if you don’t. And despite my being a rubbish audiophile, I don’t like the idea of artificially whacking up the bass on a recording: I know what work goes into making a mix and even if I can’t get it to its best effect, I won’t deliberately change it.
There’s this WWDC announcement tonight. Nobody knows what’s going to be talked about – not really – but maybe Beats will come up in the presentation. I have had such a good time with Apple gear, it has helped me so much, that when Apple brings out something new I will at least hear about it, I will probably take a look. I don’t think I’ll be buying Beats headphones.
Where to watch Apple’s WWDC announcements
Follow this handy guide based on how much you like Apple:
You’re vehemently anti-Apple:
Go anywhere you like and you’ll find plenty else to watch. I think there’s football somewhere. Or is that next week?You’re vehemently an Apple fanatic:
You already know the answer.You’re a vehemently uninterested in anything to do with technology:
Well, thanks for reading this site anyway.
You’re everybody else:
The short answer is that you should go to Apple’s WWDC Event page . That’s not only short, it’s obvious. But it’s also new. I’m sure I’ve seen some Apple announcement streamed live but until recently the quick way to find out what is and isn’t announced is to check out an unofficial Mac website and watch as they live-blog the event.
I loathe live blogs. I have mocked live blogs. I can live without being told what music Apple is playing before the event.
And I can live without any of the actual news Apple announces. Yet I like these events, I enjoy them and I would be watching the new live stream. Except:
You’re me:
Throughout the event you’ll be driving to a place near Stratford to talk with a reading group that you’re going to write a story for.
I am obviously and understandably excited about that, but yes, you can bet that on my way home I will see if the recording of the event is up.
CMO vs CIO – initials were never so absorbing
Genuinely, this absorbed my attention and I knew so little about it that I had to look up what the initials stood for. CMO is Chief Marketing Officer and CIO is Chief Information Officer. Probably every corporation has them but allegedly most corporations don't have them working together very much at all.
But I was very tickled by how this piece pointed out a truly gigantic change that has happened with these jobs. It used to be that marketing people were a bit vague and nebulous, they had ideas but you coudn't really test them before doing them. It used to be that technology people in a company were the ones who knew how things could be done, what they would cost and what exact impact it would have.
Today marketing people have so much detail about customers that they can and they do model things like price changes and they know what the outcome will be. Whereas IT people are the ones who can't predict how much budgets will go over, who can't guarantee security and whose great work is undone by every member of staff who brings in an Android phone.
This Macworld piece is about Liz Allen, a former Apple marketing exec who has followed this change over the years and has a lot to say about it. I tell you, I was reading her comments on my phone as I raced around. Didn't have time to stop and read it properly yet couldn't help myself grabbing the next few seconds to read a bit more.
Video: full Jimmy Iovine and Eddy Cue interview
The new Code Conference with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher interviewed Apple's Eddy Cue with Jimmy Iovine – who as of this week is also with Apple. Though you may not be able to tell that from his cracks against the company's white earbud headphones.
Code Conference has posted the entire natter right here: