Linked List: November 9, 2015

Monday, 9 November 2015

Tim Cook: ‘iPad Pro Is a Replacement for a Notebook or a Desktop for Many, Many People’ ★

Tim Cook, in London for iPad Pro promotional interviews, to The Telegraph:

“Yes, the iPad Pro is a replacement for a notebook or a desktop for many, many people. They will start using it and conclude they no longer need to use anything else, other than their phones,” Cook argues in his distinctly Southern accent (he was born in Alabama). He highlights two other markets for his 12.9 inch devices, which go on sale online on Wednesday. The first are creatives: “if you sketch then it’s unbelievable… you don’t want to use a pad anymore,” Cook says.

Cook told The Independent in a separate interview that the only devices he’s traveling with are his iPad Pro and iPhone.

Interesting tidbit here:

Cook hints that Apple may have more plans for the health sphere, in a revelation which will intrigue Wall Street, but he doesn’t want the watch itself to become a regulated, government-licensed health product. “We don’t want to put the watch through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) process. I wouldn’t mind putting something adjacent to the watch through it, but not the watch, because it would hold us back from innovating too much, the cycles are too long. But you can begin to envision other things that might be adjacent to it — maybe an app, maybe something else.”

Some good remarks on government-mandated encryption backdoors, as well.

The Onion Reviews ‘Spectre’ ★

“A chilling character study of a man suffering from debilitating alcoholism.”

Hewlett Packard’s 1977 HP-01 ★

What comes around goes around — just look at that steel link bracelet.

TAG Heuer Connected Watch Side-by-Side With Vintage Heuer Carrera ★

It’s a really big watch.

See also: Video of TAG’s announcement event today (for real this time — sorry for the wrong link on this earlier), hosted by Hodinkee’s Ben Clymer. Say what you will about the watch itself, you certainly can’t fault TAG Heuer CEO Jean-Claude Biver for a lack of enthusiasm. Skip to the 28:00 mark to hear him explain the “connected to eternity” trade-in program.

And whatever you do, don’t miss the ending, when Biver cuts the cheese right on stage.

WordPress Now Powers 25 Percent of Websites ★

Matt Mullenweg:

Sometimes it goes up and down through the course of a month, but it’s still a pretty fun milestone that we can now say about one in four websites are now powered by the scrappy open source underdog with its roots stretching all the way back to a single person in Corsica, France. We should be comfortably past 25% by the end of the year.

The big opportunity is still the 57% of websites that don’t use any identifiable CMS yet, and that’s where I think there is still a ton of growth for us (and I’m also rooting for all the other open source CMSes).

What a great success story WordPress is.

Adobe Creative Cloud Apps on iPad Pro ★

Adobe has released a new video with artists talking about using Creative Cloud apps on the iPad Pro:

Watch and hear what some of the world’s most creative people think about using Illustrator Draw, Photoshop Mix, Photoshop Sketch, Photoshop Fix and other Creative Cloud apps on the new iPad Pro.

David Chartier, on Twitter:

Interesting iPad Pro video from Adobe, but it bugs me how nearly everyone seems to draw deliberately palm-less.

Michael B. Johnson (who works at Pixar):

@chartier The palm rejection is great. The vids do it that way so you can see what they’re drawing and the low lag.

TAG Heuer Unveils $1500 ‘Connected Watch’, Made in Collaboration With Intel and Google ★

Stephen Pulvirent and Chris Rovzar, writing for Bloomberg:

The Connected Watch is big at 46.2mm across and 12.8mm thick, but it’s made of titanium, so it’s surprisingly light. The bezel is marked in five-minute increments and has a black carbide coating that gives some contrast against the case’s brushed and sandblasted surfaces. Paired with one of seven colors of vulcanized rubber strap and a matching titanium buckle, it looks and wears a lot like one of TAG’s mechanical watches. From a distance it’s nearly indistinguishable from TAG’s Heuer 01. Still, though, I wish it were a lot smaller (maybe something closer to 42mm), and the fact that brands such as Motorola are sizing down their offerings tells me I’m probably not the only one.

46mm is a big watch, and the styling is decidedly masculine. But it definitely looks like a TAG Heuer. It doesn’t have a heart rate sensor, which seems curious. The watch faces are skeuomorphic copies of TAG’s mechanical watches. Like Apple Watch, it’s “splash proof”.

Now, one thing TAG can offer that none of its competitors can is a service it calls “connected to eternity.” (Again, I don’t know who’s coming up with the names here, but they’ve got some serious work to do.) After two years, a Connected Watch owner can bring the watch into a TAG Heuer retailer, trade it in with an additional $1,500, and receive a mechanical TAG Heuer watch in return. Sure, it’s not a one-for-one trade, but it’s definitely a big step up over letting a $1,500 Connected Watch sit dormant in a drawer for the next decade after its software becomes obsolete, until you finally toss it in the garbage.

This seems weird. If the reason for upgrading is that the technology in your watch is outdated, wouldn’t you want to upgrade to a new Connected Watch? It seems oddly pessimistic to assume that two years from now Connected Watch owners will want to go back to a mechanical watch.

Apple: iPad Pro Available to Order Online Wednesday, Arrives in Stores Later This Week ★

Apple:

Apple today announced iPad Pro is available to order online on Wednesday, November 11, from Apple.com and will arrive at Apple’s retail stores, select carriers and Apple Authorized Resellers starting later this week. Apple Pencil and Apple’s new Smart Keyboard, also available to order on Wednesday, bring breakthrough levels of precision and utility to iPad Pro.