Category: Apple

Apple by Joe WilcoxSep 28, 20151:25 pm

Apple Watch vs Huawei Watch

If you are thinking about buying a new iPhone to get Apple Watch, reconsider. Hard. There’s a new Android Wear timepiece that is just as stylish, if not more, but costs much less. If Huawei Watch isn’t the Apple Watch killer, it foreshadows what could be.

For the comparison today, my quick review focuses on the two smartwatches that I purchased, with which materials and attractive designs are most similar (other than their shapes—squairsh vs circular). To reiterate: I paid for both devices. Neither manufacturer sent a loaner for review. The one came from Apple Store and the other from Amazon.

Apple by Joe WilcoxSep 25, 20159:34 am

Origin Story

Sometimes the Internet community surprises me. My last post, “Apple, How Did It Come to This?” is why. Everyone creating content everywhere wants to know the magic formula for generating reader response. The pageview-obsessed seek the golden ticket that consistently means clicks. Me? I write obsessively. It’s like breathing—a necessary and unavoidable act.

The “Come to This” post garnered quite a bit more attention than I expected, in part because of its origin. Some of the activity is Twitter, but more of it occurred on Google+ overnight. The post is an adapted Plus response to a comment to a shared BetaNews story that I wrote based on something else I posted first on Google+. Confusing, isn’t it? I’ll explain in linear fashion.

Apple by Joe WilcoxSep 24, 20158:36 pm

Apple, How Did It Come to This?

Last week, I sold my 2015 MacBook Pro to a New Yorker vacationing in San DIego and returned to using Chromebook Pixel LS, which I wouldn’t have guessed when buying the Apple laptop in June. From Day 1 the MBP felt slower in every way. I expected the Mac to be a creative enhancer, as had been my experience going back to my first in December 1998. The computer proved to be an impediment instead.

What’s missing in subtle but cumulative ways: Quality. The computer looks the same but doesn’t feel the same. My reaction to Apple Watch, which I also sold, is similar. Something is missing. There’s a glitchiness that is hard to characterize that is pervasive. Time is wasted, and creative flow is disrupted.

Apple by Joe WilcoxSep 23, 201512:24 pm

Squeeze Some Apple Juice, Google

In my last post, I joke about the other five people who bought bought Nexus 6 to make a broader point. Apple laps up positive PR—and rubs Android’s nose in stinky sidewalk dog poop—by touting rapid iOS 9 adoption. Based solely on devices accessing the iTunes App Store, the number is 52 percent as of September 19. By the same measure, as of September 7, from Google Play: 20 percent of Androids run the newest version, Lollipop. iOS 9 released last week, and Android 5 arrived last year. Ouch!

Google shouldn’t let the comparison stop there. The company should release Lollipop adoption data selectively, for stock Android devices like Nexus 6. That makes the comparisons to iOS more equal, being devices for which both companies control updates. Apples to, ah, Apple comparison is more appropriate and it’s smart public relations management.

Apple by Joe WilcoxSep 20, 201511:26 am

iOS 9 Upgrade Gone Wrong

Friday night I texted my wife: “It’s like dying and going to Hell”. That’s where I was two hours into the ordeal of recovering my nearly 94 year-old father-in-law’s iPhone 5s. There’s a 30-minute comedy show script in the experience somewhere. Not that I laughed living through it.

The drama—eh, comedy of errors—started innocently enough. Anne returned from taking her dad to Fish Friday lunch at McDonald’s. He loves the sale price filet sandwich, with two apple pies and decaf. (I wouldn’t eat the desserts, which here in San DIego are now deep fried rather than baked. Change happened a couple months back.) She reported he couldn’t use the phone: Password problem. Around 5:30 p.m., I set off to fix him up.

Apple by Joe WilcoxSep 19, 20155:44 pm

Apple Ad Blocking Blasts the Google Free Economy

On Sept. 16, 2015, Apple released iOS 9, which enables users of iPad and iPhone to disable ads. The company claims the capability improves the overall user experience. As someone covering the tech industry for more than two decades, I perceive it as something else, too: Competitive assault against Google and means of pushing publishers to iOS 9’s new News app. There is nothing friendly about Apple’s maneuver. It is aggressive and tactical. But does it really matter?

Stated simply: More than 90 percent of Google revenue comes from contextual and search-related advertising. Apple derives about the same figure from selling devices and supporting services. At the same time, mobile is the future of Internet advertising and the battleground where the two meet. The entities’ respective mobile platforms, Android and iOS, long ago put the tech titans on a collision course. Conceptually, what Apple can’t gain from iPad and iPhone sales, it can take by shaking pillars supporting its rival’s business.

Apple by Joe WilcoxSep 14, 20153:00 pm

‘If It’s Not an iPhone…’

The first weekend of iPhone 6s and 6s Plus preorders are behind us, but Apple already looks ahead. This morning, the company presumably sought to quell last week’s Wall Street jitters in statements to CNBC, Financial Times, and MarketWatch, among other news services popular with investors. This is perception-management at Apple’s finest, and it is metaphor for success selling smartphones and why most competitors flounder by comparison.

I didn’t receive the statement and so cannot attest to its veracity. But presuming esteemed financial news services accurately report, misdirection isn’t much better than this. Apple doesn’t give an exact figure, instead stating: “We are on pace to beat last year’s 10 million unit first-weekend record when the new iPhones go on sale Sept. 25”. How circumspect is that? Ten million the first weekend two weeks later?

Apple by Joe WilcoxSep 12, 201512:45 pm

Apple Products without Purpose

As Apple’s iPhone 6s and 6s Plus preorder weekend progresses, I reflect on the week’s announcements. Increasingly, I see the company as the middle-aged boys club; men of a certain age designing products for rich, white, middle-age males. Of course, execs want women and people of other ages and classes buying pretty things, too. I refer to a mindset that seems to be core to Apple’s post-Steve Jobs design ethic.

“Products without purpose” I call new MacBook, Apple Watch, and iPad Pro. Where once Steve Jobs filled niches and created new categories, CEO Tim Cook and company create new Apple ware for which there is little to no need whatsoever.

Apple by Joe WilcoxSep 9, 20156:13 pm

Is This Apple’s 9-11 Respect?

Apple’s decision to start iPhone 6s and 6s Plus preorders on Saturday September 12 surprises me. Friday is typical, which lets the company tabulate an extra day into the weekend when reporting the number of preorders the following week. So you have to wonder why the change. I asked Apple PR, but there is yet no response yet.

In 2014, Apple announced iPhone 6 and 6 Plus also on September 9th, a Tuesday. Preorders began on Friday the 12th and sales one week later. In 2013, there was no preorder option for iPhone 5s, just straight sales starting Friday September 20th; announced the 10th. In 2012: Fridays September 14th for preorders; the 21st for sales. In 2011: again Fridays, October 7th preorders and October 14th sales.

Apple by Joe WilcoxSep 9, 20153:35 pm

iPad Pro: My Story in Tweets

Apple’s newest tablet, announced earlier today, isn’t on my shopping list. At 12.9 inches, the screen on the iPad Pro is too big. The device can’t comfortably fit the hands for long periods of time. I have experience with 12-inchers. I will likely keep my iPad Air 2, unless Google comes out with some gotta-have Nexus tab before Apple starts selling its beast in November.

The media event marks a big day for the fruit-logo company, which also introduced new Apple Watch models. That’s code for same internals with more case color and band choices. Apple TV gets a big refresh, and new iPhones are queued up for preorders starting Saturday September 12. The company usually does Friday, but that’s the 9-11 terrorist attack anniversary.

Apple by Joe WilcoxSep 6, 201512:30 pm

I Like Apple Music, But…

Yesterday, I joined the 61 percent. The figure represents the people who, in a MusicWatch survey of 5,000, had turned off auto-renew on their free Apple Music trial, which for all ends September 30. Unless something really big comes out of this week’s media event, where new iPhones could debut and iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan receive release dates, I will listen elsewhere. For now, I will stream higher-fidelity tracks from Tidal, and expand my musical horizons at services like SoundCloud.

Strange thing: I don’t dislike Apple Music. Curated playlists are “frak me” good. Family pricing, $14.99 per month, is very reasonable. The library is voluminous; if I want to listen to it, Apple Music likely has it. Then there is the benefit of easy access to my own library of about 14,000 tracks alongside juicy fruit picked from the orchard.

Apple by Joe WilcoxSep 4, 201512:58 pm

‘Bold. Brilliant. Brutal.’

Documentary “Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine” is in theaters and on-demand, starting today. Tagline “Bold. Brilliant. Brutal.” snatched by attention, because it’s so evocative of Apple marketing style under the cofounder’s leadership. I doubted […]