Linked List: July 25, 2015

Saturday, 25 July 2015

Bushel 

My thanks to Bushel for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed. Bushel is a simple-to-use, cloud-based mobile device management solution designed for the Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iPod devices in your workplace. Bushel makes it easy for you to set up, manage, and protect your Apple devices — when you want, wherever you are. Your first three devices enrolled are free forever, and each additional device is just $2 per month, with no contracts or commitments.

Check out their website to see just how nice their design work is. Bushel is “device management” for people with discerning taste.

Tony Fadell on Apple Watch 

Tony Fadell (admitted watch aficionado), in an interesting interview with the BBC:

Tellingly, Mr Fadell reveals he recently started testing Sir Jonathan’s latest product, the Apple Watch, although he was not wearing it at the time of interview.

“I’ve had mine for about two weeks now,” he says.

“I think they did a tremendous job on the hardware components of it. They are trying many different things with that platform - some are going to be great, and some are not.”

Consider the difference between “I think they did a tremendous job” versus “I think they did a tremendous job on the hardware”.

Update, 3 August 2015: Leo Kelion from the BBC emailed me with some additional context. Immediately after saying the above, Fadell continued:

“The same thing happened with the iPhone. If we go back in history when the iPhone first shipped there were a few things that weren’t so right about it. But the second version, the third version started dialing in the right amount of each of those pieces and it really, you know, hit the ground running. So, I hope and I would fully assume they will do the same thing with the Watch as well.”

Clearly, I was wrong to read Fadell’s comments as a backhanded gibe at Apple Watch’s software.

Jim Dalrymple Got Most of His Music Back 

Jim Dalrymple:

It’s been an interesting and confusing day. I arrived at Apple this morning to talk to them about my issues with Apple Music and to hopefully fix my problems. The good news is that I have about 99 percent of my music back. […]

Apple said my music was never deleted and that it was in the cloud the entire time. Before Apple Music, iTunes Match would show me all of my songs — matched, uploaded, and purchased. However, if you turn off iCloud Music Library and Apple Music, iTunes Match will only show your purchased content now. There is no way to separate iTunes Match from the iCloud Music Library. Before, you would turn off iTunes Match — now you would turn off iCloud Music Library.

So now I have the iTunes Match service that I pay for separately, and Apple Music, both of which use iCloud Music Library. There is really no way to get away from them if you want to use the latest and greatest from Apple.

I’ll admit, I’m still trying to get my head around how this works.

As clear as mud how this all works. Why not make Apple Music a separate standalone app? Apple Music: subscription service with DRM. iTunes: music you own, no DRM.