Category: Media

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Apple Music Will Surely Succeed

Seven days ago, CEO of the most valuable, publicly-traded technology company on the planet unveiled a potentially category-changing online streaming service. In 15 more, you will be able to subscribe—three months for free. Pundits wave the Spotify flag and spit out diatribes of disgust, much as they did when Apple launched iPhone eight years ago or iPad in 2010. Wrong again is their destiny. Will they ever learn?

Many of the doomsayers forget, or maybe just ignore, the fruit-logo company’s success disrupting category after category. They also start out from a misguided premise: That Apple is a latecomer who cannot catch up with competitors like Spotify. How ridiculous. iTunes debuted in January 2001, iPod nine months later, and iTunes Music Store in April 2003. By longevity and reach, which includes exclusives (like The Beatles) and large catalog, Apple is the status quo. On June 30, the giant awakes, and the smidgens shake as it walks. 

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Flickr a Day 165: ‘Let Me Ride–West Village’

As an artform, iPhonography is more than just about the camera or the shooter. Post-processing matters, too. That my friends is justification for picking the fifth subway pic featured in this series (see Days 2445, 72, and 155 for the others). Ryan Vaarsi captured  self-titled “Let Me Ride—West Village” one week ago using iPhone 6 Plus. Vitals: f/2.2, ISO 100, 1/15 sec, 4.2mm.

The photo takes the Day for composition, color, and contrast that looks more like film than digital. Ryan got the classic look in part by applying the VSCO Cam app‘s A1 “analog” preset. The app is free, but most presets cost something. A1 is among a collection of 12 for $2.99. iPhone users can shoot straight from the app or edit existing pics. 

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Responsible Reporting Section 2 ‘The New Journalisms’: Chapter IV

Today’s excerpt from Responsible Reporting: Field Guide for Bloggers, Journalists, and Other Online News Gatherers spotlights the fourth type of journalism. The other three: Contextual, process, and conversational. Advocacy journalism is the most provocative of the five that the ebook identifies. Many people working in traditional news media outlets would scoff at the idea.

They would be wrong. Advocacy journalism has a long history—centuries old—but the Internet magnifies its reach and the soapbox upon which its proponents stand. 

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WWDC 2015: My Story in Tweets

As the week closes, I reflect on Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference, which commenced on June 8, 2015. I watched the keynote on Apple TV and live-tweeted from my comfy couch. Fittingly from Chromebook Pixel LS.

I find iOS 9 interesting enough to test. Today, I signed up for an Apple Developer account; my old one expired years ago. The process took a phone call, because Apple claimed my bank declined to pay. How strange. So I tried another card. Then a third. Hey, my accounts are good! I called the bitten-fruit for assistance, and someone senior in developer support manually processed the $99 fee, because of the glitch. How fraked is that? 

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Flickr a Day 160: ‘Every Little Piece of My Heart’

I came across the photostream of Lotus Carroll about a month ago. There was never a doubt that she would be featured but more question: “Which piece of art?” For weeks, I kept her Flickr open in a browser tab as reminder. Had intellect triumphed over intuition—post immediately rather than wait—I would have missed delightful self-titled “Every Little Piece of My Heart”, which she shot on May 18, 2015.

Lotus used Canon EOS 5D Mark III and EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens (gotta love Canon L) to capture today’s selection. Vitals: f/4, ISO 640, 1/200 sec, 88 mm. You might think she performed some Photoshop montage magic, but this is a clever natural shot—a backdoor selfie with focus on her eight year-old. The self-title punctuates meaning. Visual storytelling is rarely this good…unless it’s another pic from her fabulous Flickr.