MyAppleMenu - Fri, Mar 27, 2015

Fri, Mar 27, 2015 The Don't-Mind-The-ROI Edition

The Apps You Can't Kill

Lily Hay Newman, Slate:

Are we setting ourselves up for unforeseen consequences when we allow companies like Apple to make choices for us? Using an iPhone means accepting the company’s limitations and judgments—even if those judgments prove to be tone-deaf. “When you look at what you can and cannot delete on a new iPhone, you realize Apple has an incredibly weird and depressing view of what the lives of its users are like —and what we intend to do with our phone[s],” Thompson writes.

I seriously doubt Tim Cook will endorse the idea that regular people should check stock prices of companies every day or every day or every few minutes. For Apple's own stocks, Tim Cook has said repeatedly that it is meant for long-term investment, and not for short-term investors that are concerned about day-to-day minute-to-minute changes in price.

Having an undeletable Stock app from Apple on the iPhone goes against this idea. (Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, there is a stock app on the Apple Watch too.)

didn't realize so many other people had "Apple crap" folders lol http://t.co/vohGbNeKYc mine is pretty inconspicuous: pic.twitter.com/VFSB1y3rSP

— šīrīn ✺ šəfīʿ (@shereeny) March 27, 2015

Instapaper Joins the Slow Creep of Speed Reading

Lily Hay Newman, Slate:

Instapaper, the reader app that lets you save Web pages and look at them later, released a new feature on Thursday called Speed Reading. Starting today, users can speed-read 10 articles per month for free, and premium users can do infinite speed-reading on their mobile devices. The feature joins a growing group of speed-reading software that's pushing the limit of how much content we can consume.

Also:

Stuff.

Building a Custom Connected Lighting System

Sean McMains, Mutual Mobile

I recently moved into a new apartment. It’s a great place, except for one glaring omission: the built-in desk area has terrible lighting. After looking online a bit, I discovered that there are excellent LED strips that would fit beautifully under the overhanging shelf above my desk.

As an engineer, I love to build stuff (even when it’s not an especially good idea). I decided the preferable course would be to create my own connected lighting system with LEDs that can display custom colors and be controlled by iOS

No, Apple's Latest Acquisition Wasn't an Attack on Open Source

Chris Bing, Streetwise:

"If you are using open source, and simply don't want the code to disappear, you ought to keep a copy. If you are using open source, and you want its governance and ongoing maintenance to not be decided by the fate of a single company, then you could choose to push that open source code into the arms of a foundation designed for that purpose, such as Apache or Eclipse," Sheehy said.

Also:

Former FoundationDB users will now have to choose between either continuing to use a piece of software that won’t be supported and won’t receive any security updates, and migrating to a new database. That won’t necessarily be easy since there are so few databases that work like FoundationDB. Had FoundationDB been open source, the community could have picked up where the parent company left off.

Develop.

Amazon Now Offering Unlimited Cloud Storage Space

Dan Moren, Six Colors:

[Apple offering] an unlimited photo storage option would engender a heck of a lot of goodwill. And, frankly, ensuring not just convenient access to all your photos but also that you don’t have to worry about which memories you can afford to back up is a message that befits the company that’s not only the world’s largest and most profitable, but also continually insists it puts its customers first.

On the other hand, there is no such thing as unlimited storage. But, yes, Apple may want to lower its prices.

Apple's Tim Cook Leads Different

Adam Lashinsky, Fortune:

Cook’s defiant, confident tone reflects the CEO he has become. No one guards Apple’s distinct corporate culture—a culture designed by Jobs—more fiercely than Cook. Yet he also is gradually tweaking Apple at its edges, leading the company where he wants to take it, adding his unique perspective, and subtly but clearly redefining Apple in his image. It isn’t clear if Jobs would have approved or disapproved. But the enigmatic founder himself, in his dying days, told Cook that he shouldn’t obsess over trying to channel Jobs when making decisions. Given that, the question of what Jobs would have thought of where Cook is leading the company is, in the end, beside the point.

Apple Wants to Rewrite History: The Demented Scheme to Make Steve Jobs a Saint

Rachel Kramer Bussel, Salon:

No reader should expect “the whole truth” from any work of nonfiction, be it memoir, biography or history because (gasp!) there is no such thing as a singular, definitive truth about anyone. Readers should be able to draw their own conclusions, and hopefully Apple’s top brass will recognize that Jobs was, after all, fallible and multi-faceted. In other words, a “human being.” Whether he was “great” or not is up to you to decide. Having multiple, well-researched books on the topic of Jobs should serve as a boon to Apple followers, rather than the pick-a-side book battle it’s become.

Notes.

Parting Words

Thanks for reading.