Tag: iOS 9

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 WilcoxJul 30, 201511:15 am

This is How the Economist Looks on My iPad Air 2

Do you see anything missing? Nothing essential other than most of the content per page. At times like these my paranoia meter rises and I resist, often with difficulty, giving in to conspiracy theories.

This problem started with installation of iOS 9 Beta (second now). The operating system makes changes to the Newsstand, which future role is questionable. Apple is prepping a new Flipboard-like News app and content deals with it. I always wonder who exerts pressure on whom during the licensing negotiations process.

Apple by Joe WilcoxJun 21, 20159:49 am

Steve Jobs Who?

I shouldn’t be surprised, but…While in Apple Store the other day making a purchase, I chatted with the staffer helping me about the retail shop’s legacy. I don’t remember what influenced me to mention being at the original store’s opening in May 2001, which I covered for CNET News. “In Virginia?” She asked. I affirmed, Tysons Corner. “I have a picture”.

After which I fumbled like an old fart bringing up the image above from Flickr on my phone. She politely suggested the app, which wasn’t installed, as I clumsily used the browser. When I finally got the image on screen she asked, with some giddiness: “Is that Tim Cook?” Not cofounder Steve Jobs, who sits next to Apple’s current CEO.

Living by Joe WilcoxJun 16, 20159:55 pm

My Summer Sojourn: OS X 10.11, OS 9

Due to a rather startling accident, my wife’s laptop is no longer among the electrically living. She will use my beloved Chromebook Pixel LS for a few months, while I step back into the Apple lifestyle to test El Capitan and iOS 9. Eight days after Apple released developer previews, I finally am getting around to installing them, on 13-inch MacBook Pro and iPad Air 2. Whoa, I dunno about the new font!

The Mac is a new purchase. Our cameras and computers are all insured, and late last week I filed the second claim in more than a dozen years (the first replaced a hard drive, for $250, after my daughter dropped her aluminum MacBook during finals week two years ago). I grudgingly picked the 2.7GHz Core i5 MacBook Pro with Retina Display, 8GB RAM, and 256GB SSD.

Apple by Joe WilcoxJun 11, 201511:00 pm

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?

Apple by Joe WilcoxJun 11, 201512:30 am

Siri Says: ‘Google is Big Brother’

I have some advice for the European Union Competition Commission: Lay off. You don’t need to reign in the Google monopoly. Apple will correct the market around search and mobile. That’s one of two related takeaways from Monday’s WWDC 2015 keynote. iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan up Apple’s push into search and proactively-delivered information in big ways. That is if delivery is as good as the company promises.

The other takeaway harkens back to what I told you last week about Tim Cook’s piracy rant against unnamed Facebook and Google alongside the friggin U.S. government—plural if thinking beyond the Feds: It’s BS marketing. Apple prepares a major competitive assault against Big G, hitting where damage can be severe: Perception and profits. I cannot overstate Google’s vulnerability, which ironically is where the search and information giant exploited Microsoft during this Century.