Linked List: September 19, 2013

Thursday, 19 September 2013

‘Green iPhone 5C Hidden in a Beard’ ★

Special guest Jim Dalrymple joins yours truly on this week’s episode of The Talk Show to talk about the new iPhones 5S and 5C on the cusp of their release, as well as iOS 7. Something to listen to while you wait in line outside your local Apple Store tomorrow.

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Jony Ive and Craig Federighi Interview With USA Today ★

Another interview on the cusp of the release of the iPhone 5S and 5C, this one with Marco della Cava of USA Today:

Federighi says iOS 7’s new look is inextricably linked with technological advances.

“This is the first post-Retina (Display) UI (user interface), with amazing graphics processing thanks to tremendous GPU (graphics processing unit) power growth, so we had a different set of tools to bring to bear on the problem as compared to seven years ago (when the iPhone first launched),” he says. “Before, the shadowing effect we used was a great way to distract from the limitations of the display. But with a display that’s this precise, there’s nowhere to hide. So we wanted a clear typography.”

Very interesting — sounds like Ive and Federighi get along very well. (Although I think that was exactly the point of Apple having paired them together for these interviews — emphasizing the harmony atop Apple’s executive ranks, in stark contrast to the situation just one year ago.) Much better piece than the Businessweek one today.

Alan Hanson Reviews the Best Five iOS 7 Ringtones ★

Regarding “Silk”:

You are folding laundry in the laundry room of your modest suburban Colorado home. You are pleased with this zen task. A cool breeze fondles the lace curtains of your open window. The crisp midday air begs you to inhale fully, which you do, and this also pleases you. Suddenly, but without startle, a marble-worker’s firm hands delicately grab your waist. You are flush. You are dreaming. You decide not to wake up. You see where this goes.

Nailed it.

Businessweek Scores Interviews With Cook, Ive, and Federighi ★

Sam Grobart, writing for Businessweek:

To Cook, the mobile industry doesn’t race to the bottom, it splits. One part does indeed go cheap, with commoditized products that compete on little more than price. “There’s always a large junk part of the market,” he says. “We’re not in the junk business.” The upper end of the industry justifies its higher prices with greater value. “There’s a segment of the market that really wants a product that does a lot for them, and I want to compete like crazy for those customers,” he says. “I’m not going to lose sleep over that other market, because it’s just not who we are. Fortunately, both of these markets are so big, and there’s so many people that care and want a great experience from their phone or their tablet, that Apple can have a really good business.”

“We’re not in the junk business” is exactly why none of us should have expected the 5C to be cheaper than it is.

Concluding, Grobart writes:

You could say that Apple’s approach in mobile ignores history, specifically the Mac/Windows wars of the 1990s, which Apple clearly lost.

I know this is universally accepted as gospel in the business world, but how does this jibe with the fact that Apple has been the most profitable PC-maker in the world for the last decade? Not counting iPads or iPhones, just Macs, Apple makes more profit than any company producing Windows PCs — and yet we’re supposed to accept as fact that Apple “clearly lost” the Windows-vs.-Mac war? Methinks Grobart should have paid more attention to Cook regarding junk businesses.

Clueless ★

Fred Wilson:

The C in 5C does not mean “cheap” as I had hoped. It means clueless, as in clueless about how the vast majority of new smartphone users are paying for their phones.

I would have gone with cash, but what do I know?

iPhone 5C Packaging ★

Like the iPod Touch (complete with fake iOS sticker on the surface of the device), and not at all like any other iPhone to date (all of which were packaged in cardboard boxes).