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Category: Apple

iPhone naming – it’s not that complicated

iPhone naming – it’s not that complicated

For some reason, there appears to be confusion – still (even among some Apple press) – about why this year’s phone is not called the iPhone 6, and is instead called the iPhone 5s. Outside of the original year, a very predictable pattern exists – so far. In even-numbered years, a completely new phone arrives, with a redesigned chassis. In odd-numbered years, a revised “S” (now “s”) phone arrives, which carries over most of the chassis of the previous year,…

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Make them fall in love

Make them fall in love

A friend was telling me the other day about his new Mac. He bought it, took it home, and said it was like Christmas; opening it up, the ease of getting started, and the look and feel of the hardware, as well as the software. Normally a buyer of PCs, he decided to buy a Mac. A few months before, another friend said the same about buying his first iPhone. What’s unusual is that these two, like me, are ex-Microsoft…

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Remember the Clipper chip?

Remember the Clipper chip?

I happened to bring up the Clipper chip in a conversation with a colleague today, where we were discussing the latest NSA-related news, communication privacy, (and of course the Apple 5s). Looking back at it now, it’s fascinating how much advice the past gives us today. I encourage you to read the words of Whitfield Diffie in his testimony to the US House of Representatives on May 11, 1993: “I submit to you that the most valuable secret in the world…

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What’s the deal with OWA for iOS?

What’s the deal with OWA for iOS?

Earlier in July, Microsoft announced OWA for iPad and OWA for iPhone. Available only for Office 365 subscribers for now (available for Exchange 2013 at an undisclosed point in the future), OWA for iOS originally left me a bit confused. You see, at a glance, there’s really nothing that OWA for iOS does that you can’t do with the built in mail app on iOS. The one benefit I arrived at upfront was that with Exchange’s autodiscover, configuration for novice…

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Friction-free commerce? Hold on to your wallet.

Friction-free commerce? Hold on to your wallet.

I’ll admit it. I have a problem. It’s an iTunes problem. Apple doesn’t think I have a problem, they’re quite happy with me. My wife has the same problem, but it’s with Amazon, not Apple. You see, online commerce has been pushing us all farther and farther down the road of “frictionless commerce”, where we can buy things without dealing with the pesky nuisance of actual cash. I’ve recently started contemplating how frictionless online commerce works, and I’ve begun referring…

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The iWatch – boom or bust?

The iWatch – boom or bust?

In my wife’s family, there is a term used to describe how many people can comfortably work in a kitchen at the same time. The measurement is described in “butts”, as in “this is a one-butt kitchen”, or the common, but not very helpful “1.5 butt kitchen”. Most American kitchens aren’t more than 2 butts. But I digress. I bring this up for the following reason. There is a certain level of utility that you can exploit in a kitchen as it…

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Content, not the chrome. Apps, not the phone.

Content, not the chrome. Apps, not the phone.

Ahead of WWDC 2013, many people were still expecting Apple to add live tiles, and possibly widgets to iOS 7. I didn’t expect either, and as a result wasn’t terribly disappointed to see them not included (that might be an understatement on my part). At first glance, live tiles may seem like a no-brainer in any operating system. Tiles that provide you information from within an app… How could this go wrong? Here’s the problems that I have with live…

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Beware of strangers bearing subscriptions

Beware of strangers bearing subscriptions

Stop for a second and think about everything you subscribe to. These are things that you pay monthly or annually for, that if you didn’t pay for, some service would discontinue. The list probably includes everything from utilities to reading material, and most likely a streaming or media service like Netflix or Hulu, or a subscription to Amazon Prime, Xbox Live or iTunes Match. I’ve been noticing a tendency for seemingly everything to move towards subscriptions. Frankly, it irritates me…

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The Cloud is the App is the Cloud.

The Cloud is the App is the Cloud.

During the last week, I have had an incredible number of conversations about Office 365 with press, customers, and peers. It’s apparent that with version 3.0 of their hosted services, as Microsoft has done many times before at v3.0, this is the one that could put some points on the board, if not take a lead in the game. But one thing has been painfully clear to me for quite some time, and the last week only serves to reinforce…

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Tools to optimize working on the Mac

Tools to optimize working on the Mac

A few weeks ago I wrote about gestures on the Mac vs. Windows 8. By and large, I’ve shifted to using my Mac with most apps in full-screen, and really making the most of the gestures included in OS X 10.8. It isn’t always easy, as certain apps (looking at you, Word 2011), don’t optimally use full-screen. Word has Focus mode (its own full-screen model) and now supports OS X’s full-screen mode – but not together. Meaning if you shift…

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