Linked List: June 17, 2013

Monday, 17 June 2013

Vintage 2007 Nokia Claim Chowder 

Alistair Croll, writing for GigaOm in November 2007:

But in the end, we know how this story plays out: iPhone is Compuserve; Nokia is the Internet.

Apple Statement on Customer Privacy 

Unsigned statement from Apple:

Apple has always placed a priority on protecting our customers’ personal data, and we don’t collect or maintain a mountain of personal details about our customers in the first place. There are certain categories of information which we do not provide to law enforcement or any other group because we choose not to retain it.

For example, conversations which take place over iMessage and FaceTime are protected by end-to-end encryption so no one but the sender and receiver can see or read them. Apple cannot decrypt that data. Similarly, we do not store data related to customers’ location, Map searches or Siri requests in any identifiable form.

That last sentence separates Apple from many other companies.

Apple’s Signature 

Darby Lines, on Apple’s new “This Is Our Signature” campaign:

In my opinion this has been, from the return of Steve Jobs at least, the singular goal of Apple. Not to make all the moneys, not to dominate markets, not to impress bloggers but simply to make products that enhance our lives.

Apple spent nine months in complete silence — from the release of the iPad Mini through last week. The only thing they announced in that interim was the ouster of Scott Forstall and corresponding reshuffling of executive responsibility. No new products, no new designs. And the business and tech media lost their shit over this, declaring an end to Apple’s ability to innovate. Apple’s “This Is Our Signature” mantra is in defiance of this superficial demand for an endless stream of new new new. Apple is saying they’re above the churn of the news cycle, and if you don’t understand that yet, they don’t care. You’ll either get it through your head eventually, or you will never understand Apple.

Don’t Worry About iOS 7 

Jim Dalrymple:

Judging from my inbox, Twitter and Messages, people are losing their minds over iOS 7 and some of the changes Apple introduced at WWDC last week. Here is my advice to you — sit back, take a deep breath and relax.

There are a few things you need to remember about iOS 7. First, it’s nowhere near finished in terms of design or functionality. Apple engineers stopped adding or changing the operating system before WWDC so they had a stable build to show during the keynote. It’s not done.

iOS 7 is so far from done that maybe there is a story here, in that Apple has a mountain of work ahead to get iOS 7 ready for actual release this fall (presumably, coincident with the release of new iPhone and iPad devices). But to judge iOS 7 beta 1 as you would a release version is silly.