Linked List: October 16, 2015

Friday, 16 October 2015

Iconic 

My thanks to Jonathan Zufi for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed to promote his remarkable book, Iconic: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation. Now in its second edition, Iconic is a beautiful coffee table book with over 650 photos, covering nearly every product Apple has made. The entire history of the company, in one book — including several prototypes. It’s a terrific resource for anyone who covers Apple, and a great gift for anyone who appreciates great design.

It’s hard for me to imagine just how much work went into it. Even the cases for the various editions are remarkable. It’s quite simply a great book. A great deal, too: Daring Fireball readers can save 25 percent off the Classic Plus, Special, or Ultimate editions — all with free shipping.

HTC One A9 Photos Leak 

Looks a little familiar. Can’t quite put my finger on it.

VentureBeat: Intel Has 1,000 People Working on Chips for the iPhone 

Mark Sullivan, writing for VentureBeat:

Intel now has a thousand people or more working to outfit a 2016 iPhone with its lauded 7360 LTE modem chip, sources say. If all goes well, Intel may end up providing both the modem and the fabrication for a new Apple system on a chip.

Sources close to the matter say Intel is pulling out the stops to supply the modems for at least some of the iPhones Apple manufactures in 2016. This phone will likely be the iPhone 7. VentureBeat was the first to report on the two companies’ work together, and more pieces are falling into place as the project progresses and grows.

If you can’t beat them, join them.

Sources with knowledge of the situation say that Apple eventually would like to create a system-on-a-chip (SOC) that includes both the phone’s Ax processor and the LTE modem chip. A system-on-a-chip design could deliver significant returns in improved speed and better power management.

Including the LTE modem on the SoC would also make it a lot smaller, right? Which in turn would make it more likely to fit inside, say, a watch.

Notes on Notes.app 

Stephen Hackett has a great look at the new Apple Notes app:

When Apple showed off iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan, the built-in Notes app got a lot of attention. Gone was the old, let’s-sync-via-IMAP-and-hope-for-the-best system. In its place, a more modern backend — powered by CloudKit — to an app with a lot more features than before.

The new Notes app allows users to style their text easily, add checklists, photos and even hand-drawn sketches. But is it any good?

In a word, yes.

Apple Announces New ResearchKit Studies for Autism, Epilepsy, and Melanoma 

Apple PR:

“We’re honored to work with world-class medical institutions and provide them with tools to better understand diseases and ultimately help people lead healthier lives,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s senior vice president of Operations. “In just six months, ResearchKit apps studying everything from asthma and diabetes to Parkinson’s disease, are already providing insights to scientists around the world and more than 100,000 participants are choosing to contribute their data to advance science and medical research.”

Amazing stuff.